


Still Life

by Esca



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Body Modification, Bunch of Fags the Whole Lot of Them, Coming of Age, Endgame is KurGam, Friends With Benefits, Gen, Glossophobia, Highschoolstuck, Humanstuck, M/M, Makaracest, Piercingstuck, References to Other Pairings/Ships Throughout, Selective Muteness, Siblingstuck, Tattoostuck, indigocest
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-11-13
Updated: 2012-12-02
Packaged: 2017-11-18 13:57:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 10
Words: 26,937
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/561803
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Esca/pseuds/Esca
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes life passes us by. Sometimes it feels like we're just standing still and we've no control over our thoughts, our actions, our futures. Sometimes we need someone, anyone, just to say that they give a damn when everything turns to shit and we don't know what direction is up or which is down.<br/>For Gamzee and Kurloz, they are that person for each other.<br/>They just don't know it yet.</p><p>
  <i>Updates will resume this Summer.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

  * For [harshwhimsical.tumblr.com](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=harshwhimsical.tumblr.com).



> I haven't written anything of substantial length like this for an incredibly long while. Tags, characters, relationships, et cetera will be updated as the story progresses. Thanks for giving this and me a chance, it means so much.
> 
> This is for Monet. Happy Birthday. You've only been in my life for a short time but already you are very special to me.

You've been counting the days 'til he'd barge into your sleepy, idyllically quiet life for two weeks and three days. You even marked it down on your calendar at work--the proceeds from the purchase benefited shelter cats in need. Your ex-girlfriend Meulin had given it to you as a present because she thought the pictures of the cute kittens might help calm people down who were scared of needles.

You'd rolled your indigo eyes and signed to her, _'If they're scared of a needle, they have no business being in my parlor in the first place.'_

She'd simply laughed and went back to watching Cronus tattoo a large, colorful octopus on a girl's ribcage--he always was horrifyingly talented at nautical-themed artwork.

You and your baby brother didn't have the same mom. His had died a month ago. Yours had walked out on you sixteen years ago when you were only five, and you hadn't heard from her since. You remember on the night she left the both of your parents getting into an argument. Something about a baby and a whore. At least, that's what your mom had kindly referred to his mother as, and really, she was a perfectly lovely woman, far from being a lady of the evening. You never understood why your old man didn't take her as his wife when a settlement was reached in the divorce.

You'd only met your half-sibling a couple of times, but Gamzee had no other family to take him in since the only involved parent in his life lost her battle with cancer. Your dad was hardly ever around, too busy corrupting the world with his political agenda, so that left you.

What the hell did you know about taking care of a sixteen-year-old? You at the age of twenty-one were barely an adult yourself. But at least you weren't doing too bad for yourself--you were in part owner of a decent-sized tattoo and piercing parlor with an acquaintance from high school, you paid your bills on time, and you got to stick needles in people all day, every day, from open to close.

Surely having your little baby brother here with you won't fuck up the lifestyle you've worked so hard to maintain for yourself?

Your name is Kurloz Makara. And that is what you're going to keep on telling yourself.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello there, mini-me.

Kurloz ignores the stares he gets as he waits near the gate for Gamzee's flight. He is a pale, heavily-pierced and tattooed black ink blot stark against the sea of plaid, calico, and paisley patterns and solid bright colors that float around him, making up all the other people waiting to greet loved ones or racing to catch their connecting flights. Mituna is texting him, or rather, is attempting to, and he smiles a little, his lips restricted by five long surface bars piercing them closed. He can open his mouth just slightly, and he exhales softly when he sees the plane pull up slowly.

He remembers seeing his baby brother when the other was ten and he was fifteen. He doesn't know what he looks like now--the only thing he has to go on is a memory of a pale, skinny boy with a missing bottom tooth, curling black hair tangled and unmanageable like his own, and the exact same indigo-colored eyes that seemed to sparkle with mischief and mirth.

Kurloz doesn't have to wait long to find out. Between Mituna's jumble of misspelled letters and numbers and erroneously used exclamation points that make up this latest message, he is distracted, and he feels a rather painful pull at his heartstrings at the sight of a tall, slender boy with lidded, angry eyes and two piercings in the left corner of his bottom lip exiting the gate with a black knapsack thrown over one shoulder, looking around for a brief moment and then settling his gaze on him, registration apparent on his youthful, sharp features.

He is the most beautiful thing Kurloz has ever laid eyes on. 

Scuffed purple Chuck Taylors with a lace coming undone, black asphyxiating skinny jeans, and an obscure band t-shirt... they are definitely blood. They look alike, they dress alike, do they act alike, by chance? And is it wrong of him to want to go up to him and touch his face and run his fingers through his hair just to make sure he’s real and not an illusion of grandeur as badly as he wants to at this moment?

His best friend sends him another text, the vibrations from his phone bringing everything back into focus. Kurloz is in the airport, staring at his little baby brother like he's converted to a new religion, and what he should be doing is walking over to him and offering to take his carry-on or something. So he does just that, but not before forcing his appreciative gaze into a blank, unreadable expression.

Gamzee simply gives him a cold look. It is made apparent all too quickly that this will definitely not be a pleasant family reunion. Kurloz simply sighs and shrugs his shoulders, and signs, _'If you want help, ask.'_ This morphs Gamzee's expression into an outright sneer, and he responds, "Dad up and motherfuckin' told me you don't talk. Thought he was yankin' my goddamn chain, but it's true, huh? You're just some fake-ass wannabe mute who'd rather sign his shit than have an actual conversation with a fucker like a polite human being. Should have just put my happy ass in the system and been done with it..."

Ouch.

So much for the sentiment that they might have the same personalities--Gamzee is biting and bitter, completely unlike his default state of calm and contentment to simply be.

Kurloz lets him walk on ahead. He understands Gamzee's rage--he isn't exactly too thrilled either about having the sibling he barely knows collide into his life so suddenly and turn everything upside down, but he thinks all of that was uncalled for. He simply shakes his head and directs his train of thought to more important things, now that he has to concern himself with getting Gamzee to school on time and keeping him fed, clothed, and making sure a roof stays over his head while their father is on the road touring and promoting his political nonsense. Kurloz makes a mental note to get the old man to start sending him at least a few hundred bucks more in each of his monthly _'sorry I'm never around'_ checks. Teenagers are expensive, always wanting shit.

They walk to the baggage claim, the older Capricorn trailing a good few steps behind to give Gamzee the space he needs. When they get to the carousel, Kurloz can’t help but smirk softly--his baby brother’s luggage sticks out like a sore thumb, with all the graffiti marked onto it and the safety pins tagged here and there, there’s no denying who it belongs to, and his smile only widens when his suspicions are confirmed and Gamzee plucks the suitcase up and sets it down rather gingerly. Kurloz watches him, and eventually Gamzee visibly seems to relax when a guitar case comes around, wedged in between someone’s Louis Vuitton pieces. He’s mesmerized by the way those long, slender fingers pick up the case and set it down, fiddling with the padlock and the latches before flicking it open and thumbing, plucking at the strings with his black-lacquered nails. When the younger is done inspecting his instrument to his satisfaction for cracks and nicks, the case is closed and locked again painstakingly, and he slings it around his other shoulder not prior occupied by his carry-on. A brief twinge of annoyance flashes through Kurloz's identical eyes--Gamzee is just as stubborn as he is, and he can already sense that no matter how much he signs to him that he's willing to alleviate some of his burden, he'll just get that cold glare in return.

He wonders if Gamzee can even understand what he's saying to him when he signs. The thought of a language barrier makes him worry. But then he recollects why he chose to stop speaking in the first place, the catalyst behind that deeply personal, intense vow, and the promise he would be breaking to Meulin. The car accident that made her go deaf in one ear and partially in the other was his fault, after all. Some days she couldn't hear at all--he didn't know how to go about deafening himself, but at least his refusal to speak again would be recompense enough for ruining her life.

At least, he hopes it is. He just feels lucky that Meulin never held it against him and that she was still one of his closest friends.

Kurloz is jarred from his train of thought by the sound of Gamzee's stomach rumbling as they walk towards the airport parking lot, and he shakes his head. _'And so it begins...'_

He digs out the keys when they approach his shiny black Civic and pops open the trunk, motioning with a quick curl of his index and middle fingers for Gamzee to hand over his crap so he can load it up. This time the younger of the pair doesn’t protest, rather, he actually complies, much to the elder’s well-hidden surprise. He handles the guitar case with the same amount of tender care that his baby brother had, treating it like it were a sacred object, something to be revered. He is not so loving with his suitcase or carry-on, which earns him a harsh shove to his shoulder from Gamzee and an accompanying choice, indignant comment about Kurloz’s mother--he’s rather unaffected by it in the grand scheme of things--he too thinks little of the woman, though he knows his curmudgeonly sibling said his piece solely in irritation.

_‘Shut up and get in the car already.’_

“I don’t understand that hand-talky language shit.”

_‘You will eventually. You’ll have no motherfucking choice.’_

Well, that answers that question.

Kurloz thinks that maybe if Gamzee tries hard enough, perhaps he’ll be able to burn a hole through him, what with the way he seems to have a penchant for constantly glaring at him for the littlest of things. He doesn’t remember ever being that moody as a teenager. Maybe Gamzee is just a special case, he ponders as he watches the sixteen-year-old slide into the passenger seat and shut the door with a bit more excessive force than necessary as he himself walks around to the driver’s side after shutting the trunk closed, the complete antithesis of Gamzee as he makes only the slightest of noises upon shutting the car door once he has sat down in the driver’s seat and secured his seatbelt. He makes no secret his disapproval of his little brother’s lack of concern for his own personal safety, and he taps his fingernails, giving him a blatant look that plainly reads, ‘I’m waiting’, as he starts the car yet refuses to throw it in reverse until Gamzee too buckles his fucking belt.

It hasn’t even been fifteen minutes and already he wants to ship him back to Detroit where he came from. What if Gamzee doesn’t even like New York City? Just because they hardly know each other doesn’t mean he wants the little brat to be miserable, but at the same time he’s not going to tolerate him attempting to make him feel thusly either.

Eventually he gets a little cooperation on the kid’s part, _finally, **thank you angels of double death.**_ The idea of wringing his scrawny chicken neck was sounding more and more appealing by the passing millisecond at that point, but luckily, potential crisis averted. Their dad would _kill_ him if he were to come home to find himself minus one son. Legitimacy aside, Kurloz knew that Gamzee was probably the old man’s favorite. _Absence makes the heart grow fonder and all that bullshit._

Reaching over, he pinched Gamzee’s cheek with a smirk, privately amazed at how much they looked alike despite being half-siblings. The snarl he was issued in response to his rather daring gesture was worth it to see the annoyed flush well up on his baby brother’s face--he’d not been expecting that in the slightest. Even at sixteen, he still had the capacity to be adorable, just like as a boy with his missing bottom tooth and near-honking laughter as Kurloz picked him up and piggybacked him around the front lawn--it was positively cute as fuck.

“Stop motherfuckin’ touchin’ me and drive, asshole! I’m tired and I’m hungry as fuck!"

_But this Gamzee was a joy to have around._

He missed the ten-year-old version of his sibling so badly.

Sighing softly and finally pulling out of the parking space, Kurloz wonders what exactly it will take to level and reason with him. They might not have been close, but blood was blood, no matter how diluted it became via other little factors. He'll try to get through to him somehow--he feels like he at least owes Gamzee that much.

Right now though, he's going to concern himself with his baby brother's growling stomach. The sound is starting to annoy him.

He hopes he likes McDonald's.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Domesticity is not always bliss.

_‘...I'm gonna pop some tags_  
 _Only got twenty dollars in my pocket_  
 _I - I - I'm hunting, looking for a come-up_  
 _This is fucking awesome....’_

He's learning things about him already just from that quick little impromptu fast food jaunt.

Gamzee can _throw down_ when he's hungry. He'd went through two cheeseburgers, a large fry, and who knows how many chicken nuggets before looking completely scandalized at the prospect of having to drink Coca-Cola instead of Faygo, as he's been accustomed to since childhood.

_Spoiled brat._

When was the last time he ate, anyways?

“Turn the station.”

Kurloz wasn't hungry so much as he was thirsty, and as he drove he sipped from the straw in his cup of Sprite, putting it back in the cup holder in the console before fiddling with the radio as per Gamzee’s request, turning it to a station spouting classic rock tunes. They were almost at his apartment--he'd prepared for his brother’s arrival about a week in advance by turning his office space into the second bedroom it was always meant to be according to the floor plan until their father could fetch Gamzee proper and move him into the sprawling two-story house Kurloz had grown up in.

Hopefully he would be comfortable enough until that time came.

After getting him situated, Kurloz needed to see about getting him enrolled as soon as possible. It was the middle of the semester, but Gamzee would be able to adjust to being in a new school enough. Besides, the prospect of having to take him to his shop and babysit him didn't sound appealing in the slightest--the sooner he got him in classes, the better.

"I wanna go to Montauk sometime."

He wasn’t expecting that. It came out of nowhere, in Kurloz’s opinion--but he looks at him anyways and raises an eyebrow in a silent gesture for him to continue on.

“I just like being around water is all. I feel like I can think when I’m near it.”

Gamzee is less of a pain to be around when he's not starving--hunger makes him disagreeable and highly irritable. Kurloz looks at him and nods his assent--he's rather fond of the beach as well, especially during the winter months when the water is frigid and there's nary a soul around, so unlike the crowded claustrophobia of summer. It's peaceful, tranquil. Perhaps during the little shit's winter break he can take some time off and see about renting one of the beachfront properties--Christmas in Montauk sounds nice. When they've managed to work out some method of communication, he'll ask him what he thinks about the prospect.

Flipping on his signal, Kurloz pauses briefly at a red light, rapping his fingers and looking over at the 7-11. He imagines that Gamzee will probably do like he does and make plenty of midnight jaunts over there on foot once he finds out they stock some of the best Faygo flavors there. He stops wiggling his fingers impatiently just as the stop-light turns green, and he makes a right, accelerating seamlessly and settling to an even 40 despite the blatant 35MPH road sign. He always goes five or ten over the speed limit.

The trees and buildings are blurring into familiarity--little local businesses, his favorite sushi bar, the tavern he goes to every Friday night with Cronus after work for a round, always on that smarmy motherfucker. Not much longer now. Gamzee's eyes are darting back and forth, to and fro, wide and taking in all of his surroundings. They drive past the high school, and he taps on the window with a black-painted fingernail. "That where I'm gonna be goin' t'school?"

"Mmhm..." Kurloz replies, the noise of confirmation soft and deep, betraying his characteristic baritone. Slight sounds are the only loopholes he allows himself from time-to-time, and it is apparent by the look on his baby brother's face that he wasn't expecting it, which makes him smile.

"So you do motherfuckin' speak."

Kurloz shakes his head in the negative, almost feeling bad for a few seconds when he sees Gamzee's face fall and his expression become surly again. He's not trying to make things hard for him or make him unhappy, but he is who he is, and he's not going to change for anyone, just as he won't expect Gamzee to, either.

The rest of the car ride is spent in silence--at least it is on his part. Gamzee is muttering colorful expletives even as Kurloz punches in the gate code to his apartment complex and drives on through, braking over speed bumps and grinning when he gets a really good parking spot not too far away from his apartment on the first floor. Normally when he gets off at midnight all the good spots are taken.

Cutting the engine and unbuckling his belt, he takes his keys from the ignition and pops the trunk via a quick push of a button before getting out and closing the driver's side door gingerly. Gamzee gets out of the Civic and once again slams the door, making Kurloz visibly wince. His poor car, it didn't deserve that kind of rough treatment...

He's plucking his sibling's belongings from the trunk, only to have them unceremoniously yanked from his grasp in a thankless way. Sighing, he chooses not to do anything about it and just let Gamzee be like he pleases as he shuts the trunk and motions for him to follow as he picks out the key to the front door of his apartment and unlocks it, motioning for him to go in ahead first considering his loaded-down state. He follows the younger inside, shutting the door and locking it again and gently grasps Gamzee by his shoulders and steers him down the hallway towards his new room, ruffling his hair and gesturing with an elaborate flourish of his hands.

It's not a huge space, but it's not small, either. It's appropriately teenager-sized, and the bed looks comfortable as fuck, Gamzee notes as he sets his guitar case down carefully up against the wall and puts his carry-on and suitcase on the black comforter and sits down, bouncing a little as if testing it out.

Kurloz has this expression on his face. It's like it's a mix of concern and something Gamzee can't really register exactly. He knows he's trying, but that doesn't mean he's just going to welcome him into his life with open arms. His sibling had every chance to be there for him prior--now that he doesn't have a choice since his mother is dead and they're the only family he's got left, it's hard to tell what's sincere and what's done out of a feeling of guilt or obligation.

And now he's signing again. Gamzee groans and covers his face with his hands and flops back against the mattress.

_Fuck it._

When Kurloz gets him enrolled in school, he's going to raid the library and try to find some books on American Sign Language, because this is utterly ridiculous. They've got to be able to communicate somehow.

The sentiment is shared on Kurloz's part--he'd only wanted to make sure that the room was to Gamzee's liking and instead the little shit lets out this _groan_ like he's _inconveniencing_ him and hides his face as he lays down fully.

Letting out a sigh, Kurloz heads down the hallway and into the kitchen, opening his designated junk drawer and grabbing some green post-it notes and a purple ink pen. His script is flowing, elegant, and his words biting. When he is finished writing, he tears off the post-its and and goes back to Gamzee's room, hovering over him and putting the sticky backing on his forehead with a statuesque expression.

Gamzee peels the sticky notes off his skin and reads them one by one, his face falling and morphing into an angry expression.

_You don't have to be here if you don't want to be._  
 _But I'm not going to fucking tolerate you being a sass-mouthed little shit._  
 _Get over yourself. I'm not changing who I am just for your benefit._

"You're a motherfuckin' asshole! Fuck you, you don't know shit about me or what I was thinkin' back there!" Gamzee hollers, crumpling up the post-it notes into balls and lobbing them at Kurloz with a choice hand gesture.

Kurloz clenches his teeth and is on his little brother in an instant, their noses near touching as he grabs him by his t-shirt and blatantly invades his personal space, the urge to hit him, _something,_ completely overwhelming. He can feel his breath on his lips and the brief wash of warmth makes a shudder race up his spine.

The _little bastard._

_Damn him to hell._

"Hit me, fucker. I dare you."

Kurloz moves his lips, but no sound is coming out. _'Stop it. Just stop it. I don't know what the fuck you want from me.'_

He lets go of him and leaves his room, shutting the door and writing one last note on the pad of sticky notes telling Gamzee where he’s going before grabbing his car keys and unlocking the front door to his apartment and stepping outside, using the key on the ring to lock it after shutting it behind him.

He needs to get away from him. Just for a little while. This is becoming too overwhelming and the fact that he was so close to actually putting his hands on Gamzee all because of perceived communication failures scares him slightly. What worries him even more, he thinks as he gets in his car to make the drive up to the high school to get him registered, was how much he wanted to feel how soft his lips would be against his own.

**There is definitely something wrong with him.**


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll eat you up I love you so.

They didn't speak to each other for the rest of the night.

Gamzee stayed in his room except to use the bathroom and raid the pantry when he got hungry again. Even as he took an entire two-liter of Rock 'N' Rye flavored Faygo and the whole bag of sour cream and onion potato chips, Kurloz said nothing to him, and simply continued sketching on tracing paper, the graphite of his pencil getting silvery-gray smudges on the side of his hand.

He'd debated upon informing him that he had school in the morning, but he figured he could just simply wake him up.

When his alarm went off, Kurloz rolled out of bed, his hair a tangled mess and his sleep pants and t-shirt disheveled. He slowly trudged down the hall and opened the door to Gamzee's room, smiling at the sight that met his indigo-colored eyes.

He was asleep, sprawled out on top of the covers, potato chips scattered here and there as the faint blue glow of his laptop washed over his pale skin, making him look eerily ethereal. He'd fallen asleep in the middle of a Skype conversation, given the gray capslocked text that made up the majority of the IM window. Kurloz wasn't one to pry or snoop--he didn't read any of it, and instead closed his baby brother's laptop and gently shook him a few times.

"Hrnngh..."

_Shake. Shake._

"...School?" Gamzee mumbles, eyes still closed as he rubs his face.

"Mm."

The younger Makara's eyes flutter open and he looks up at Kurloz. "You gonna come get me after?"

Kurloz nods. He's not sure what Cronus will think about him toting Gamzee along to work for a little while until he gets adjusted to living here and feels secure enough that he can be home by himself after school, but he supposes that prat won't really have much room to talk--he brings his little brother up sometimes to the shop when he gets out of school and their Dad is visiting their motherland, doing whatever it is one does when they own a successful international fishing and boating empire based out of Scotland.

Gamzee has a little bit of sleep in the cornea of his right eye. With a gentle swipe of a black-lacquered fingernail, Kurloz removes it, and repeats the motion for the left. The tenderness of the act surprises even him, and if he dwells on it long enough, Kurloz knows he doesn't hate his baby brother. It would be like hating an extension of himself, and that is nothing but destructive.

"Kurloz."

"Mm?"

Gamzee sits up slowly, the potato chips on his belly falling to his sides. He smears the kajahl rimming his waterline as he rubs his eyes again, and his newly-found raccoon look makes Kurloz chuckle slightly. He’s silenced, however, when the younger hesitantly wraps his arms around him and leans his chin on his shoulder.

“... ‘m sorry.”

They’re bittersweet words, tangible, a relief to be heard, and yet Kurloz can sense the palpable suffering behind them.

“I just... really miss my ‘Ma. I didn’t want it to be like this. It’s hard to know if you really even fuckin’ want me here or if you’re doin’ it ‘cause you feel like you’re obligated. You know what I mean?”

It’s like a punch to the gut, his words. They take all the air from his lungs and leave him hollow, breathless. _Hurting, just like him._ Kurloz closes his eyes and wraps his arms around his only sibling and just hugs him close, running his fingers through the tangles in his mop of hair. He presses his pierced lips to his temple and pulls back, letting out a soft noise when a potato chip crunches between their bodies. That noise becomes a gentle laugh when Gamzee takes the pieces and pops them in his mouth, grinning mischievously and eyes sparkling with mirth.

 _‘Clean up, you dork. I don’t want ants in the apartment. And take a shower while you’re at it.’_ Kurloz mouths slowly, making little gestures with his hands as needed to illustrate his point.

“When’s school start?”

The elder Makara makes a seven, a four, and then a five with his fingers.

“...Seven forty-five? Aww man, that’s way too early!”

All Kurloz can do is shrug in sympathy--he knows Gamzee’s pain--he was a teenager once, too. Now he’s a working man, and can pretty much make his own hours. He rather enjoys going in at noon and getting off at midnight. It’s a long shift, but it’s manageable, because he’s doing something he loves. Were he doing something he hated, like poor Mituna, subjected to being a people greeter-slash-cart pusher at Wal-Mart of all things because his brain trauma severely limited his employment options, he definitely would not be so keen to work for twelve hours, not counting his hour for lunch and the mandated fifteen minute breaks he gets to take to smoke a cigarette or do whatever.

He’ll pick him up at two-thirty in the afternoon and bring him to the parlor, let him maybe watch Cronus finish up Meenah’s giant back piece depending on if she decides to actually come in on time for once. Peixes is a spitfire, hell of a girl, and it’s always _hilarious_ to watch her take the mickey out of him.

Trudging to the kitchen, Kurloz digs around in the fridge and takes out the bread from a drawer and gets a slice of gouda and an egg. Spraying a skillet with a little non-stick cooking spray, he turns on the burners to the stove. Cracking the shell, he pokes at the egg yolk with a spatula until its broken and lets it meld with the white before flipping it over and letting it cook on the other side, sprinkling a little pepper and salt on it. Two pieces of bread are put in the toaster, and he can hear the shower going and Gamzee singing off-key some mainstream pop power ballad. It’s completely unexpected, and it makes him smile.

Kurloz gets a plate and winces when the pieces of toast burn his fingertips as he plucks them when they jump from the toaster. He deposits the cooked egg on one, then the slice of gouda cheese, and slaps the other piece of bread on top to make a simple egg sandwich for his baby brother to eat for breakfast. First day of school, he can’t go on an empty stomach. Pouring a glass of orange juice (no way is the doofus drinking soda pop with his morning meal), he sets everything on the table and pokes around in the pantry and fridge, looking for stuff he can put in a sack for Gamzee to take for lunch--no way is he going to subject his sibling to the horrors of cafeteria food. He remembers once upon a time in his youth forgetting his own brown bag lunch and being forced to eat some kind of weird mystery meat... The amount of gristle in it was _nauseating._ It’s like they couldn’t even properly grind it. He shudders at the memory and gets out a ziplock baggie, putting some cucumber slices and carrot sticks inside and closing it. No way is he going to let the younger Capricorn get away with stuffing his face with junk food all the time--Gamzee’s too cute to be getting all chubby on him. 

A simple turkey pita bread sandwich, veggies, an apple, and a little squat sixteen ounce bottle of Redpop Faygo make up the lunch he’s prepared for his brother to take to school. All-in-all, he thinks he’s done pretty good. The shower’s stopped running and he can hear various cursings and assorted ‘ow!’s and ‘argh!’s coming from behind the door. If Kurloz had to guess what he were doing, he would assume he’s attempting to brush that impossibly tangled mop of hair on his head. He makes a note to get some detangling spray the next time he goes to Wal-Mart to keep Mituna company.

Gamzee stumbles out soon enough, hair looking significantly less a mess but still wild, even when damp. He’s wearing grey skinny jeans with a black polka dot pattern, and the light peppering of dark hair leading from his navel to-- _fuck, he’s staring again._

“You made me breakfast?” the younger asks as he trudges into the kitchen shirtless, painted fingernails scratching his stomach and leaving an angry red trail on his pale skin.

Kurloz opens up his junk drawer, takes out a pad of yellow paper and a sharpie, and writes in big block letters one word:

**Yerp.**

Gamzee snickers and grabs his sandwich, turning around to go back down the hallway. Kurloz frowns and immediately snaps his fingers, getting his attention.

“What?”

The elder Capricorn points at the table and gives him a no-nonsense look. The kid’s already gotten chips all over his bed and probably on the carpet, no reason for him to get egg, cheese, and bread crumbs everywhere on top of all that. 

Gamzee grumbles, but parks it at the table and takes a huge bite of egg sandwich, gouda all melty and stringy. He practically demolishes it in under a minute and swallows down that entire glass of orange juice in four gulps.

Is he even human? Fucking Hoover vacuum.

"Thanks for breakfast."

Nodding his assent, Kurloz takes the glass and plate from Gamzee when he hands them over, and he rinses them out with a little water under the faucet tap from the sink before sticking them in the dishwasher. When he looks back up, he can't help but watch slightly entranced as Gamzee strides down the hallway and ducks back in his room to finish readying for school.

His ass and thighs look way too good in those jeans.

Kurloz closes his eyes and sighs softly, feeling his loins stir in response to the visual stimuli. Running a hand through his hair, he wills away his impending hard-on before Gamzee can re-emerge fully-dressed and see him in a right state.

"Bro? You okay?" Gamzee blinks when he comes back into the kitchen and sees Kurloz leaning forward on the granite countertops and seemingly meditating. He shifts his backpack on his shoulders and quirks his head to the side, studying his sibling. When he receives a nod of acknowledgement in response, he shifts slightly, tattoo-flash combat boots leaving imprints in the carpet. "I'm ready to go whenever you are."

Plucking up the keys to his car and handing over the brown paper bag with his sibling's lunch, Kurloz motions for him to follow, and after locking the apartment up behind them, they're both getting in the Civic in their respective seats, Gamzee once again slamming the door and making Kurloz wince.

"What?"

He's such a little shit.

As he drives him to the high school, he's grateful that this time, the drive isn't as tense and nervous--at least it isn't on his end. But he can feel nerves radiating from Gamzee like a sickly congealed aura he can't control. He wants to reach out and put his hand on him, comfort him, something, but he worries that he'll get the same reaction he did yesterday in the car--though admittedly that first touch was more in jest than seriousness.

Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

He places his palm on Gamzee's shoulder and gives it a quick, affectionate squeeze, expression meaningful. He doesn’t get a nasty scowl or a flinch of the shoulder in response, rather, Gamzee is still, despondent as he just stares ahead at the road in front of them. And then he finally speaks.

“I’m ok. I’m all kinds of motherfuckin’ fine.”

He isn’t. He isn’t motherfucking fine at all, and Kurloz tightens his grip harsh enough on the steering wheel that his knuckles turn white. So this is what its like to be an older brother--he’s having all these foreign urges to want to protect and shield Gamzee from whatever is making him feel uneasy, and it’s almost like it’s been this way his entire life, that these feelings were somehow just laying dormant in a way.

He’s making him emotional. Now all these monstrous, malevolent demons are threatening to claw out of his chest, twisting, curling, pitch-black in all their glory and consume him, swallow his entirety in one go. For the first time in a long time, Kurloz is terrified. Terrified he won’t be good enough, that he won’t be able to take care of Gamzee the way that he needs to be taken care of. That these abnormal urges and desires to put his hands and lips on him _won’t go away._

Their expressions match now, he notices as he looks at his reflection in the rearview mirror. They’re both looking like someone kicked their puppy. Completely and utterly perturbed. It makes Kurloz’s lips curl up at the seams just slightly in mirth.

Gamzee notices it as well, and he’s biting down on his bottom lip to mask his smile. “Hey, you’re not the one going to school. You got no reason to be lookin’ like that, bro. Oh wait, s’cept you gotta go to work--”

Kurloz retaliates by flicking him choicely in the middle of the forehead with his index finger and thumb, smirking and raising his eyebrows.

Rubbing at the little mark square in between his eyes, Gamzee mutters an expletive and leans over, pinching and twisting a chunk of skin on Kurloz’s forearm and grins triumphantly when he _utters a noise, he actually makes a fucking noise._

Sweet victory.

Kurloz outstretches his hand to hit the younger Makara upside the head, teeth gritted in irritation, but he’s stopped by Gamzee pointing and giving him an expectant expression. “You just drove past the high school, Kurloz.”

Thank the Messiahs that be that there were no cars behind the elder Capricorn. He slammed on his brakes in bewilderment, sending Gamzee flying towards the windshield with a yelp before being yanked back by his seatbelt. Leaning over, Kurloz papped and pinched and poked at his baby brother with a scowl until a resounding screech of ‘Uncle!’ audited the car. Only then did he stop his mini torture fest and make a U-turn when appropriate and head back towards the campus.

“I fuckin’... underestimated you, shit...!” Gamzee’s chest is heaving up and down as he sucks precious air into his lungs. “I’ll get you back for that.”

His eyes are darting around, taking in all the different bodies of other teenagers, people his age. He unbuckles his belt and takes another deep breath, exhaling it as a stagger. “Don’t forget about me, yeah? Two thirty.”

Kurloz makes a little walking motion with his index and middle finger and then shoos him with a smile and a nod.

Gamzee opens the car door and slides out seamlessly, boots tapping against the concrete asphalt. Already a few kids are chancing glimpses at him, but they quickly go back to their own business. He slams the car door shut.

Kurloz yanks at his hair and bangs his head against the steering wheel.

Angels of fucking mercy _**why.**_


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> With friends like these, who needs enemies?

It had seemed like a good idea at the time to try to get in a few more hours before he had to go in for his shift in theory. In practice, Kurloz couldn’t sleep at all. Letting out a soft sigh, he brought his black-papered cigarette to his lips, inhaling the nicotine deep in his lungs and tapped the ashes in the little glass tray on his nightstand table, careful not to get any soot on his bedsheets as he lay propped up his pillows and stared outside at the snow starting to drizzle down from his window.

The little red digital numbers on his clock read 10:45AM. He’d spent the past three or so hours just staring off into space, thinking about Gamzee, work, his friends, life in general while slowly working his way through a pack of clove cigarettes. Seven stubbed-out filters communed together in his ashtray, soon to make friends with an eighth.

Sitting up slowly, he finished off his cigarette and stifled it out, the scent of smoke, spice, and cloves thick in the air. Opening up his window a crack, he trudged down the hallway to the bathroom and looked at his reflection in the mirror, one-by-one taking out his lip piercings and settling them on the edge of the sink carefully, metal clinking against the porcelain. As he moved, ink etched into his skin rippled with the sinew of his muscle, transforming and contorting as he arched his back and reached high for the ceiling, yawning loudly.

Scratching his shoulder with his short, black-painted nails, he got in the shower and scrubbed himself ‘til his pale skin was red, as he did every morning. The raw feeling seemed to be the only thing that gave him the sense of being clean again, like he was washing away the grit and dirt of all his day-to-day sin and burden. Yet today, no matter how hard he scrubbed, he couldn’t get his sibling out of his head. It left him feeling disgusting, and immediately upon drying off and dressing in a pair of boxer-briefs and skinny jeans, he went for another cigarette, lighting up with a thumb’s caress of his shiny silver zippo.

As he smoked, he dressed in a black button-up shirt rolled up at the sleeves to his elbows, a loose purple silk tie, and black combat boots, exhaling wispy white smoke through his nostrils as he painstakingly laced each shoe. The ash collecting on the end of his cigarette was about half an inch thick by the time he finished putting on both boots, and it nearly fell to the carpet, but luckily he caught it with the palm of his hand and promptly deposited it in the ashtray. Digging in his nightstand drawer, he thumbed through all his lip jewelry and took out a couple captive bead rings, some studs, and one long surface bar, all black metal, and went into the bathroom, using the mirror to stuff everything in his piercing holes. He trudges back into his room, and gets his phone, cigarettes, and lighter. He’s walking down the hallway, but pauses when he notices he has a text from Gamzee, in the middle of class.

The little shit.

_BrO ThErE’S ThIs cHiCk wHo lOokS LiKe a sTrAiGhT-Up kItTyBiTcH AlL Up aNd sMiLiNg aNd wAvInG At mE LiKe sHe kNoWs mE AnD It iS KiNd oF WEIRDING ME THE MOTHERFUCK OUT._

Rolling his eyes and smiling, Kurloz flips open his phone to the keyboard and texts him back, thumbs racing over the keys.

_BE NICE, BABY BRO. THAT KITTYBITCH IS NEPETA LEIJON. I WENT WITH HER SISTER MEULIN BACK IN THE DAY. GO SAY HI, SHE’S A SWEET THING. GIVES ME FREE SUNDAES OFF THE DOLLAR MENU AT HER JOB OUT HER OWN POCKET. AND STOP TEXTING DURING CLASS I AIN’T PAYING TAXES FOR YOU TO DICK AROUND ON MY DIME._

He gets another text back about a minute later.

_HaTeR. :o(_

Gathering up his hoodie, he takes his skeleton-print gloves out of the pockets and puts them on, easing his jacket on and zipping it up. Glancing at his phone, he notes the time and heads out the door, locking up and beginning the fifteen minute drive to work. The slush on the roads is thick, and he hates that he can’t drive as fast as he usually enjoys. Kurloz hums along to Chevelle’s _‘Shameful Metaphors’_ on the radio, pulling into the parking lot of the Starbucks near his parlor and he doesn’t bother cutting the engine, because he knows that the little teenage barista that just graduated from high school last semester who does a rather pitiful job of disguising her crush on him will have his favorite mocha raspberry frappucino at the ready for him the second she sees him come through the door.

He’s in and out in under five minutes, and slides back into the driver’s seat, buckling his belt and taking a sip of his chilled beverage.

Breakfast of champions. He always enjoyed how the frappucino tasted like one of those box chocolates with a dark outer shell and raspberry filling on the inside. He keeps on sipping at it, and eventually he gets a cold headache just as he pulls into the strip center where the tattoo parlor is, Cronus’ motorcycle already parked. He’s outside smoking a cigarette, and he winks and waves when Kurloz pulls up and shifts into park, undoing his belt and taking his keys from the ignition, the radio abruptly cutting off in the middle of the guitar riff on Queens of the Stone Age’s _‘3’s and 7’s’._

“‘Ey there, chief, s’matter? You look like a right bloody shambles,” Cronus asks, Scottish accent lilting his tenor as Kurloz gets out of his car and shuts the door, frappucino and cigarettes in one hand, the other rubbing his forehead as the throbbing pain from his cold headache gets worse. All Kurloz has to do is tap at his plastic drink cup, and Cronus lets out a noise of recognition. “Got yourself a cold one, eh? Try stickin’ your tongue to the roof o’ your mouth, mate.”

Kurloz does as he instructs, and after a few moments, his headache recedes, much to his relief. He moves to take another drink of his beverage, but is stopped by Cronus placing his hand over his. “Oi, I wouldn’t do that... Give it a rest, it ain’t goin’ nowhere. Have a fag with me, Porrim won’t be in for another ten or so, traffic’s a bitch.”

Shrugging in assent, Kurloz sets his frappucino down next to him and leans up against the side of the building with Cronus, taking a cigarette between his lips out of the pack and lighting it. They’re not exactly close, him and Ampora, but they are friends--Kurloz never would have agreed to a business venture with him if he didn’t trust him at least a little bit. And even though he does little things like sometimes put his arm around his shoulder or waist while they’re standing around outside talking and smoking, Kurloz knows that he’s relatively for the most part quite harmless--just some lovesick wannabe greaser unable to contain his father’s money from spouting out of every orifice.

Cronus has his arm wrapped around him and his hand is in the back pocket of Kurloz’s jeans. “We still on for drinks again Friday?”

He knows a fair bit of sign language from them working together as long as they have--they attended the same high school as well. But Kurloz still signs his replies slower than normal so Cronus can keep up and understand what he’s saying. _‘When are we never not on for drinks on Friday?’_

“Fair point, that. You got any appointments on the book today?”

_‘Aranea Serket. Going to check up on her piercings and see if they’re all good and ready to be laced up into a corset.’_

“Fancy. Meenah’s coming in today too. We’re finally gonna finish up her back. I s’pect she’ll give me quite the ribbing, thank fuck I don’t have Bubbles this week--can’t be lookin’ bad in front o’ me brother. Speakin’ of, how’d it go?” Cronus takes one last hit off his cigarette and flicks the filter, it sailing across the lot to land a good ten feet away, embers dying out slowly.

Kurloz bites down on his bottom lip and lets out a sigh.

“...It’s going to be okay, mate. Give it time.”

Cronus doesn’t know what he’s saying. Time isn’t what Kurloz needs. What he needs is a miracle to get rid of all these shameful little thoughts repeating over and over in his head like a disc on skip. _‘Gamzee is fine. He’s a good kid. Just misses his mom. We’re going to be fine. I’m just having difficulty adjusting.’_

It’s not exactly a lie, but it’s not the outright truth, either.

“It’s just the second day you've had 'im. I really do think things will turn out all right--” the Scotsman is interrupted in his sentence by a Monte Carlo with a custom black-to-jade green paint job pulling up next to Kurloz’s Civic, and a long, slender, tattooed leg sticking out, stilettos clicking against the concrete as Porrim carefully gets out of her car and locks up with a press of a manicured fingernail on her key remote.

“Cronus, really now, again? Just because Kurloz is too polite to deter your wandering hands does not mean I am against the notion of removing my shoe and hitting you upside the head with it should you continue to encroach on his personal space--he is your friend, not a piece of meat. If you are indeed so lonely and starved for human contact, might I suggest Match.com? eHarmony?” Porrim flicks her hair back smoothly and enters the shop after giving both men a once-over, the front slit in her long black maxi-dress dangerously high.

It isn’t until the door is closed securely that Cronus smirks slyly. “She wants me.”

Kurloz takes the end of his cigarette, which isn’t nearly as hot because of gathered ashes at the tip, and smothers it out on Cronus’s hand with a roll of his indigo-colored eyes, sneering at the yelp he was rewarded with and taking the opportunity to curl out from under the tattoo artist’s leech-like grip and slink inside the tattoo parlor to prepare for the day after picking up his drink off the ground.

Cronus blows on his hand and licks the wound left by the stub of cigarette with a whimper and blinks at Kurloz’s cancer stick on the ground, still lit. “Waste of a perfectly good fag, come on now...” He picks it up, and finishes it off, all the while thinking to himself that he is sharing an indirect kiss with his co-worker.

Taking a sip from his drink and finishing it, Kurloz tosses it in the nearby trashcan at the reception desk, and clocks in for his shift.The little bell to the front door jingles when Cronus comes inside, and a loud, female voice is accompanying him, nasal and heavily Brooklyn in accent.

Meenah Peixes. Surprisingly, she’s on time, and as expected, she’s immediately biting into Cronus. Kurloz decides to do his co-worker a favor and clock him in as well since he'll no doubt be occupied.

“So, Scotty, how’s your love life? I’ve been gettin more puss than I can handle--it’s a pet shop twenty-four seven, three sixty-five in my neck of the woods. How’s about when you finish me up today I send some of my sloppy seconds your way as a thank you, being how we’re old friends and all. What say you?” Meenah grins toothily, slapping Cronus roughly on the shoulder and nearly sending him toppling over with the force of her smack. She’s a spritish little thing, waify and lean, but she’s strong--she wrestles in cage matches for sport and to pick up girls and extra cash. Today she's giving out free tickets to her gun show in a black wife-beater and high-waisted neon pink jeans, long braids whipping behind her as she chews and cracks her bubblegum noisily.

“How about not?” Cronus grimaces visibly, beckoning her on back and preparing his tattoo station as she takes off her shirt and unhooks her bra, laying belly-down on the comfortable leather furniture.

“And here I was trying to do you a solid...”

Porrim rolls her vivid green eyes and sits down at the front desk and logs onto the shop’s Facebook to answer questions and give estimates on tattoo designs, Kurloz sitting down at one of the sketching stations and waiting until he hears the tell-tale buzz of a tattoo gun to head to the back and inspect Cronus’ coloring and shading.

Meenah’s back piece is stunning--Cronus keeps on outdoing himself. The tattoo is of an underwater scene with a sunken ship and all manner of sea life and aquatic flora, done in realism, the black lines kept to a minimum to showcase the color work and all the variations and hues of teals, blues, and greens.

He pats Cronus on the shoulder as a silent gesture of approval and heads back up to the front, peering over Porrim’s shoulder to see if there are any questions about body piercings. He mouths to her an estimate for an inquiry and nearly jumps when his phone vibrates in his pocket.

_nExT TiMe pAcK Me a cAnDy bAr yOu jErK. >:o(_

It must be lunch time.

_YOU EAT LIKE A PIG. YOU’RE GOING TO GET FAT._

Kurloz has a quick thought and fear races through his head like wildfire.

_DO YOU HAVE PEOPLE TO SIT WITH?_

_NePeTa aSkEd mE To eAt wItH HeR AnD HeR FrIeNdS._

Good. He’s glad that Gamzee is being welcomed among a peer group. He would have hated himself even more if his little brother spent the rest of the school year trailing off distant and alone. He’s aware that he left behind a best friend in Detroit, so close that they themselves were almost like siblings. Guilt stabs him in the gut like a knife. He can’t imagine what Gamzee is going through right now--messiahs only knows how he would feel if he had to be forcibly separated from Mituna.

_YOU LEFT A FRIEND BEHIND IN DETROIT. IF IT’S OK WITH HIS FAMILY, MAYBE SOMETIME WE CAN HAVE HIM OUT HERE AS A GUEST WHEN THERE’S A LONG SCHOOL WEEKEND._

_DuDe tHaT WoUlD Be aLl kInDs oF LeGiT!! :o)_

_WE CAN TALK ABOUT IT MORE LATER. EAT YOUR CARROTS. SEE YOU IN A COUPLE HOURS._

_:o)_

_#:o)_

Porrim is toying with the telephone cord as she takes a call from a customer, high heels propped up on the desk and ankles crossed demurely. “Mmhm... mmhm... all right. I will be sure to inform him. Thank you.” She hangs up and looks at Kurloz pointedly. “Get ready, that was Aranea. She’ll be here in ten minutes.”

Nodding, Kurloz removed his gloves and stashed them in the pocket of his hoodie, unzipping it and gently draping it along the back of the desk chair with a tiny smile at his co-worker.

Time to work.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Teenage, teenage, teenage angst.

“Are you texting your brother again?”

Gamzee bites into a carrot noisily and looks up from the screen of his phone, nodding at Nepeta. She’s just as nice as Kurloz said she would be--maybe even a little too nice, he thinks. It seems almost inhuman, how she just all of a sudden came up to him and welcomed him like they’d known each other forever. She was oddly comfortable to be around though, similar in some aspects to Karkat. She definitely wasn’t surly nor was she bitter, but she mimicked the loud behaviorisms of the Capricorn’s best friend quite spectacularly.

One minute she would be sitting down, playing a little game on her iPhone, the next she’d be leaping out of her seat screeching because she’d beaten her old high score, eagerly going around and pointing it out to all at the lunch table who would acknowledge her. It was mainly some muscular guy who indulged her, boyfriend, maybe? He gave Gamzee peculiar looks from time-to-time, but it was hard to be nonplussed when every time the Makara attempted to make eye contact, he would immediately divert his eyes away, cheeks reddening like he'd done a shameful thing.

Strange. Gamzee shrugged and grinned, gently scratching the back of his scalp with a shrug of his shoulders in dismissal before his band t-shirt was tugged on, garnering his attentions.

“I text my sister a lot, too.” Nepeta smiled, and went back to her game of Angry Birds, letting out a whoop of delight when she got all three pigs with one bird.

"I want one of them smart phone dealies. Alls I got is a dumb phone, sis, and it definitely can't do anything as cool as what yours can. No Angry Birdies or Cuttin' The Rope..."

The slightly horrified look on Nepeta's face was precious. Petting her on top of her hair and smiling at her softly, reassuringly, he papped her once more tenderly. "Hey, least I can text out my ass. Speakin' of which, will you give me a sec? Sorry to be interrupting our conversation all impolite-like."

It was Nepeta's turn to pap him, which she did with a giggle. Gamzee took that as a go-ahead that it was no skin off her tiny button nose if he had something else he needed to do--this would probably give her an opportunity to bomb more piggies.

Taking note of the time displayed on his phone, Gamzee was certain it was lunch hour for Karkat as well. Tapping his phone absently to send him a text, Gamzee let out a curse when his screen started acting up again. “Motherfucker, don’t do this to me, come on...”

A hand reached out under his face, and Gamzee blinked in slight bewilderment, looking over at the teen sitting next to him. The guy was reading a Spiderman comic book and wearing the paper anaglyph glasses that came with it, certain panels obviously meant to be enjoyed in eye-popping three-dimensional visual splendor. “Are you going to hand it over or not?” the other boy inquired shortly, a bit of a lisp prevalent as he spoke. Gamzee looked from the hand in front of his profile to the other male, and figured maybe he ought to comply.

What was the worst that could happen?

"Any day now, dude. I kinda want to read my comic..." Thin, slender fingers snapped once impatiently.

Handing over his cellphone without protest, Gamzee watched slightly enamored as the 3D glasses were removed and replaced with black wire frames, and his phone was turned off before the cover removed. The other teen took out a tiny screwdriver and tweezers from his backpack and removed the innards, poking and prodding and tweaking with the circuit board.

“What the shit--”

“Shh. I’m trying to concentrate.”

He worked on Gamzee’s phone for about another minute, and only when it was that he was completely satisfied with his handiwork did he begin to reassemble everything. Returning it to its owner, he took off his glasses again and transfixed him with his eyes, one pale blue, one a striking ocher before calmly placing the 3D glasses back on his face effortlessly. “See if it works now.”

Turning his phone back on, Gamzee let the screen load, and attempted to send a text to Karkat, grinning widely when he had no issues in doing so. “The fuck did you do?”

“That model is a piece of shit. After a while the display screen decides to give you a big metaphorical ‘fuck you’... Hopefully your contract expires soon, you’re going to need to get a new one... Perhaps this time not a 'dumb' phone, yes?” the guy licked the pad of his thumb and turned the page in his comic book.

“...I’m Gamzee. Gamzee Makara. That was kind of bitchin’... I don’t know shit about all that fancy technology crap, but damn, bro. I’m impressed.”

“Sollux Captor. My brother is best friends with your brother. I imagine they’ll probably want us to hang out too, continue the legacy and all that bullshit. Do you play Minecraft?”

“No.”

“World of Warcraft?”

“Never heard of it.”

“...Call of Duty?”

“Ehh...”

Sollux gave Gamzee a blank expression and sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“...Do you play TF2?” Gamzee supplied helpfully.

“That depends on if you’re red team or blue team...”

“Uh, red team, fucking duh, bro.”

A little half-smile creeped onto Sollux’s face. “Finally.”

He dug around for a pen and motioned for the Capricorn’s hand, and when it was offered, wrote down his cellphone number and his gamertag on his palm. “I’ll be online when I get home. I always do my homework and crap during study hall. Make it worth my while, Makara. If our bros want us to be bros, then you better at least be able to keep me entertained.” 

“Haha, I’ll legit do my best, brother...” Gamzee smirked and gave a little two-fingered salute. His phone vibrated with a responding text from Karkat, and his face broke out into a huge smile.

_**I MISS YOU FUCKWIPE. THIS IS REALLY FUCKING HARD. CALL ME. NOW.** _

“Fuckwipe? That’s a romantic pet name...” Sollux is peering over Gamzee’s shoulder, looking at the wall of bold, capslocked text with an amused expression. "Also, don't they know you're in school? Tell them to take care of their really fucking hard thing by themselves, ehehe..." He knows that wasn't the intent of the text, but Sollux still mentally pats himself on the back for managing to sneak a little innuendo in there.

“Naw, ain’t nothin’ like that. This here is my bro, my main motherfucker.”

“Where are you from again?”

“Detroit. Land of Faygo and 8 Mile Road.”

“...They actually surprisingly have good cupcakes. Not too wild about the soda pop, though.”

“Man, I am all about the soda pop.” His grin is wide, slightly-infectious, and Gamzee's body language is emphatic, only further affirming the love he has for his favorite fizzy soft drink.

“I can tell. You’ve barely touched your other food, but your Redpop is all gone.” What a perfectly good waste of an attractive-looking turkey-pita sandwich. Sollux decides that he's going to steal it under the Makara's nose when he's distracted again.

Gamzee's phone buzzes again.

_**OH MY GOD GAMZEE I WILL PISS ON EVERYTHING YOU LOVE.** _

Sollux outright laughs. “You better uh... go call this guy. Wow... holy shit, man, that’s awesome...”

Scratching the back of his head sheepishly, Gamzee has a little flush on his cheeks as he gets up from his seat and makes his way to the corridor. Sollux lashes a hand out and snatches up the sandwich Kurloz made, taking a huge, noisy bite out of it from behind the safe confines of his comic.

Karkat's number is programmed on speed-dial, and all Gamzee has to do is hold the number button for a few seconds before that tell-tale ringing noise is heavy in his eardrum. Karkat, unsurprisingly, picks up on the first ring, and his screech feels like home, makes Gamzee's heart ache a little.

“I MISS YOU, COME HOME _RIGHT FUCKING NOW_ YOU DOUCHEWAFFLE, I CAN’T DO THIS HIGH SCHOOL FUCKNUGGETRY WITHOUT YOU.”

“I’d like to, but where exactly would I be stayin’? With you and your hella motormouth bro and your old man of the cloth? Sorry, but they don’t exactly like me all that much.”

“...YES WELL THAT’S BESIDES THE FUCKING POINT, ASSHOLE. THE POINT IS THAT YOU LEFT ME HERE ALL ALONE AND I AM MISERABLE.”

“I love you too.”

Gamzee is more than aware that there are people staring at him and whispering--Karkat’s hollering and carrying on is so loud that it can be heard from a fair distance, and his shitty phone isn’t even on the speaker function. He can only imagine the spectacle his best friend is making back at his old school. A wistful little look settles on his face as Karkat makes an anguished noise worthy of a thespian and quietly mutters, “I love you more, dickface.”

“See, now that’s not up and being fair, and you know it. If you’re lovin’ me more than I love you, then that just makes my ish for you seem all kinds of lesser, and I don’t like that. Just say that you love me as much as I love you right and proper now, best friend.” The Makara wanders into the nearest restroom, the slight manners he does have telling him to move to another space where he'd be less of a disturbance.

“I love you as much as you love me,” Karkat replies in a robotic tone, if only to oblige Gamzee.

“There we go. Hey, I wanna run this by you. My bro said something about maybe you coming out here when we got a long weekend on the calendar. Think you’d be up for it? You can totally come crash in my bed and we can watch your shitty romantic comedies and play video games and do all the crap we do, it’ll be great.”

“Hey, hey, HEY. MY MOVIES ARE NOT SHITTY, FUCKER. JUST BECAUSE IT TAKES A CERTAIN KIND OF GUY TO APPRECIATE THE SUBTLE ART OF THE ROMANTIC COMEDY GENRE--”

“You know what’s really great? Pop Tarts. Man, those are legit. But you know, Toaster Strudel is pretty boss, too... I wonder how they’re all getting the filling in those motherfuckers...”

“OH MY GOD--”

Gamzee grinned widely and trailed on, aware he was purposely irritating his best friend. He just didn’t want to hear him go on another rant about his love for _The Proposal_ or _50 First Dates._ “They’re all kinds of similar to those Hot Pocket things, now that I think about it. Those pizza ones, holy shitballs, dude. I could live off of those.” He leans against the porcelain of the sink and his eyes scan the walls of the restroom.

“GAMZEE YOU ARE SUCH A CUNTWAGON.”

“I’m a _what?”_

“...Nothing. I have to go, teacher’s coming. I think he’s going to try to take my phone again. I’ll call you later after school and we’ll talk more about me coming to see you.”

“Alrighty. I’ll hit you up later,” What he really wants to say is, "don't go".

“Bye.”

He waits for Karkat to hang up first, like always. The sound of the dial-tone in his ear makes him feel so insignificant, small, and powerless. The pain weighs on him like nothing he’s ever felt in his sixteen years, and it's hard to not want to stagger under it. Karkat said he couldn’t do this, go through high school without him--if Gamzee were to be genuine with himself, he too doesn't think he can make it through another year without Karkat.

Burying his face in his hands as he sits on the ledge of the sink, he's aware he's smearing the kajahl rimming the waterlines of his eyes, but he can't muster anything up to care. Gripping his phone in an unnecessarily tight hold, he extends his leg suddenly and kicks a stall door, all of his tension and nerves releasing as his boot connects and the door swings back and forth haphazardly. The sound it makes as it hits the stall wall is satisfying, and yet he still feels rage and wrath bubbling up inside of him.

Gamzee has a lot of things he hates about his new situation, but none of them so much as the distance from his best friend, his perpetual lifeline. When his mother died, Karkat held onto him and didn't let go. _He never fucking let go._

_And then Gamzee was **forced** to let go of him and it damn near motherfucking killed him._

Hopping off the sink and looking at the wallpaper of his phone, the Makara presses a kiss to the screen, photo of himself with Karkat, arms looped around the shoulders staring back at him. He loved that angry little fuck. He was, as far as best friends went, like no other. Gamzee really hoped that he would be able to visit.

The bathroom has all kinds of bad voodoo after the stall door played victim to his anger--he can feel it. Shuddering at the little unpleasant auras floating around, Gamzee stares into the mirror, getting a paper towel and wetting it to wipe off all the latent black smears on his skin. He heads back to the lunchroom and takes his seat back in between Nepeta and Sollux, the latter giving him a questioning look. “You don’t look so good, dude. Bad phone call?”

“Huh? Oh, no. Just got some stuff going on in my head that I kind of wish wasn’t.”

“Teenage angst. It’s a beautiful thing.” Sollux replies, his tone dripping with sarcasm. He’s reading a Batman comic now, 3D glasses discarded and his corrective frames sitting on the bridge of his nose comfortably, and he licks his thumb to turn the page of his comic accordingly.

“Your eyes are somethin’ else, bro. Fuckin’ wicked as shit.”

“Heterochromia. I’m used to the staring, but compliments are kind of new. Thanks, I guess.”

“No prob.”

Nepeta gently tapped Gamzee on the shoulder, an expectant look on her face as he turned to face her. “Gamzee, what period do you have study hall?”

Grasping the strap of his backpack, the Capricorn unzips the large pouch with his notebooks and binder and reaches inside, feeling around until he withdraws a crumpled and wrinkled piece of paper with his schedule printed on it. “Uhh... lessee here... looks like I got it for seventh. Room 203B.”

“Oh, me too! Same room and everything! I thought as much, because students are usually grouped together by last name during study hall. Maybe if you like, we could go to the library beforehand and get some books on sign language and I could help you practice?”

“That’d be swell, sis. Yeah, most definitely.”

“Awesome!”

Gamzee opened his mouth to ask Nepeta how it was she knew sign language, but was interrupted by the lunch bell. Letting out a noise, he gathered up his trash and deposited it in the nearest bin, his Redpop bottle sailing into the nearby recycler. He waved at Nepeta, who raced off with her tall muscled friend, promising to see him next period after this one, and when he turned around, he let out a noise, clutching his chest as he came face-to-face abruptly with Sollux. “Aw shit, motherfucker, you scared the cookies outta me!”

Sollux simply raised an eyebrow and shrugged his limber, lithe shoulders in a nonplussed fashion. “Where you headed, dumbass?”

“Math.”

“Same. C’mon, I’ll walk with you.”

“Oh, sweet, dude!” Gamzee zipped his backpack up sloppily and eased it on both shoulders, bounding after the thin teenager and settling into a matching stride with him easily. “So... what class do you play as?”

“I bounce between Spy and Scout. You?”

“Demoman, dude. Sometimes Soldier if I feel like switching it up.”

“Your friend Shouty McCapslock play too?”

“Huh, Karkat? Yeah, he plays red team with me as Medic. Always Medic.”

“Good. I’ll look forward to kicking both your asses later after school today. It’s like everyone I know always plays blue team. I don't think it's asking too much to want to shoot somebody and then gloat about my vastly superior kill score to their face the next day in person. Can’t do that if everyone’s always on my team.”

“I’ll add you when I get home, but it might be a bit--gotta go to my bro's shop. I'm terminallyCapricious. Don’t forget it?”

“No big thing if you're not on right away. I stay up 'til the ass-crack of dawn anyways. Insomnia is a bitch. Just don’t accidentally wash my shit off your hands is more where my concerns lie.” Sollux countered back evenly with a tiny smirk.

“Nah. I’ll put your number in my phone when I get to class...” Gamzee waved his hand dismissively with a wry grin as they got down to the Math hall, eyes darting around and searching for his room number.

“This is mine right here. See you later, dude.”

“Yeah, see you. Maybe we could hang sometime.”

“Maybe.”

Despite Sollux’s answer, he’d wiggled his thin eyebrows and smiled, making Gamzee smile at him in return. Ironically, their classrooms were right next to each other's, and as he sucked in a deep breath, he couldn’t help but think to himself, maybe he’d made a new friend.

Perhaps it wouldn’t be so bad to follow in his older sibling’s footsteps in this instance.

"Oh, by the way, Sollux. You totally got some mayo on your chin. Either you're stealin' a motherfucker's sandwich that his big bro so tenderly made for him, or you're bitin' the big fluffy pink pillow. Which one is it, bro?"

Sollux's response of two middle fingers made him laugh loudly as the Gemini blushed and muttered under his breath something about 'stupid delicious sandwiches' before darting into his class.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You're so cupid.

“Okay, this is actually harder than I thought it would be,” Gamzee admitted with a low, quick puff of a sigh, purple-blue eyes scanning an open library textbook on American Sign Language, Nepeta at his side, so small in stature that she was able to curl her legs up comfortably and hug them to her person.

“You’re doing really good though for your first time signing, trust me!”

She’s all kinds of fucking adorable. Does anything ever rain on her parade? Is she always so happy? It seems like it, and Gamzee appreciates that about her. He doesn’t know anything about her older sister, but he wonders if this was how his sibling felt when he went with her--just glad to be in her company. Maybe today he might be so lucky as to make two friends.

That would be wicked.

“Hey, don’t space out on me now, you were doing so well!” she flails, the too-long arms of her olive-green coat near batting Gamzee in the face. “We were on the letter ‘E’, come on, try it with me! Like this!”

Moving his fingers in all these little twists and combinations is difficult to memorize. Gamzee is grateful that his new teacher is only teaching him six letters a session and allowing him a couple days to practice them until he has them down solid before moving on to more of the alphabet.

She’s helping to position his fingers, her hands dwarfing his. They’re awfully soft, and this makes him smile. “Nepeta, can I ask you somethin’? It’s kinda personal, so if you just wanna tell me to fuck off, it’s cool, no offenses will be taken.”

“Gosh, Gamzee. I’m not going to tell you to fuck off, that’s mean. What’s up?” 

“...I had wanted to ask you, what made you want to learn this shit anyhows?”

Nepeta visibly hesitates for a good moment, and the rumply Capricorn wonders if he’s overstepped his boundaries. But then she speaks, her voice quiet, and her pretty little olive eyes are staring straight into his indigo optics, contact established and not broken and this lets Gamzee know that what she’s about to say is serious.

“I don’t know if you knew this, but my sister and your brother used to date each other...” she begins slowly.

“...I already kind of did know that, but the fuck does that got to do with the price sticker on a block of cheese, my main kittysis?”

“It’s just that, I don’t know if Kurloz would want me telling you, but three years ago, they were driving home from a movie, and got into a really bad wreck. The car in front of them stopped suddenly, and even though Kurloz stomped on the brakes, they hit their bumper. Meulin wasn’t wearing a seatbelt, and she kind of lurched forward and her forehead hit the dash quite hard. It caused blunt force trauma to the skull, and she became fully deaf in her left ear, and partially in her right. He blames himself, even though he didn’t make the choice to not buckle in, you know? He feels like he ruined her life, but he didn’t... Meulin did this to herself...” Nepeta visibly hugged herself tighter, and buried her face in the slight gap in between her body and legs. “He refuses to talk because I guess he thinks it will make up for what happened, maybe. But I think he’s really stupid for doing it. He’s had to make a lot of changes in his life, and he’s lost a lot of friends and pushed a lot of people away by being mute. I don’t understand why someone would do it on purpose. To me... it seems more like he’s insulting my sister than anything else...”

“...I’m sorry my bro is hurting you.” He didn’t really know what to say. It was an influx of opinions mixed with information that was all a bit too much to take in all at once. But, it gave him perspective on Kurloz that he didn’t have prior... And it was perspective that couldn’t really understand. His brother had stopped talking all because his girlfriend had decided not to wear her seatbelt. His brother felt guilty because his girlfriend had decided not to wear her seatbelt and subsequently went deaf because of her own actions. His brother had changed his entire lifestyle for a girl he had ended up breaking up with anyways and yet still kept on keeping on with it.

His brother was a fool. A sentimental schmuck like that found in romance novels.

All this over one kittybitch that he didn’t even love like that anymore? _Damn._

It definitely explained though his insistence for Gamzee to always buckle up every time they had gotten in the Civic together.

“You don’t need to apologize. You didn’t do anything. Your brother is just a stubborn butt who wouldn’t listen to my sister and he definitely won’t listen to her pipsqueak younger sibling. But, maybe he might listen to you? You’re blood.”

Gamzee wasn’t really sure what Nepeta was trying to suggest to him, and he told her this as he tried to mimic exactly her hand as she made another letter of the alphabet in sign language.

“Maybe you can get him to talk again! I know it would definitely take some time... a lot of time, I mean, he’s been signing for three years, who knows what his voice sounds like... But you’re his little brother...” she explained while adjusting slightly the Capricorn’s fingers so that his sloppy ‘F’ looked like the one in the book. “There. ‘F’ for... uhm... uhh...”

“‘F’ for ‘Fuck’.” Gamzee supplied helpfully with a thumbs-up and a cheeky grin.

“That works!” Nepeta returned the thumbs-up with one of her own and a giggle. “I went ahead and checked these out for you, so promise me you’ll take them home and practice, okay?”

“Yerp.”

He’s reminded of Kurloz earlier that morning, and smiles.

“Say, while we’re here, maybe we could help each other with our homework?” Nepeta flaps the sleeves of her coat again, and this time she does whap Gamzee in the face. She makes a noise and immediately apologizes, turning red as a tomato.

Waving her off, Gamzee smirks softly and nods, picking up his backpack and taking out his Math assignment. “I am all kinds of shit at Math, you have no idea. Real good at English, though I know I probably don’t seem like it what with the way I get my speech on.”

“Ah, this is great! I’m horrible at English, but I always get high marks in Math!” Nepeta holds out her hand and wiggles her fingers as they exchange assignments, both surveying each other’s homework. “Oh pre-Calculus, blegh! I know how to do it, but your teacher has a really weird syllabus. We’re not doing pre-Calculus in my Math until the beginning of the next semester.”

Gamzee digs out his calculator while looking over Nepeta’s coursework, and notes she has to write a persuasive essay and then present a persuasive speech to her class. “What topic were you assigned?”

“I was assigned to write a persuasive essay and speech for not being in favor of high schools being segregated by gender. The girl who was sitting next to me had to write an essay and speech about being in favor for it, and when we get back from Thanksgiving break, we’re going to present our speeches to the class in a debate form and our peers will vote on which of us they felt more swayed by.”

“How are you with public speaking, sis?”

Nepeta bit on her thumb nail. “Not all that fantastic at it.”

“Gather up some stuffed animals or family or friends to be your audience, and practice over Thanksgiving. And if you gotta, imagine them in their skivvies, definitely. Just be sure to keep in mind the whole time you’re writing this, that this ain’t an informative essay--it’s you tryin’ to sway opinions towards your own, get folks to thinkin’ all like-minded in your favor. Have a strong thesis and back up your supporting statements, and try not to be all conversational? That just kills your essay and speech dead. _This kills the man.”_ Gamzee stuck out his tongue and crossed his eyes, attempting to lighten the mood.

“Haha! Gamzee, you’re such a goofball!” Nepeta snickered and took his calculator, grabbing a mechanical pencil and his worksheet and pointing to the first problem. “Okay, so show me where you’re having problems,” She offered him the pencil.

Taking it from her, the Capricorn circled the entire first problem, a deadpan expression on his profile. “It’s like you were up and saying--my teach has a wonky motherfuckin’ syllabus. I sure as shit wasn’t learning this mess back in Detroit. Man, I am fucked if I don’t learn how to do this pre-Calc business fast, you feel me?” Who knew what Kurloz would do if he came home with a sub-par grade.

“Okay, watch me. I’ll explain it to you step-by-step...” Nepeta began working on the first problem, fingers tapping on the calculator as she scribbled down numbers with the pencil on the page, Gamzee listening intently. “Did you get all that?”

“...Could you do one more, just so I make sure I have it down?” he asked, giving her blatant puppy eyes.

“Sure!”

Again Nepeta explained out the problem and step-by-step went through it from start to finish.

“...Aww man, that’s way too confusing!” Gamzee groaned, scratching at his scalp.

“I’ll do one more for you, okay? Last one, then you have to try!”

“Okay.”

She ended up doing half the problems on the worksheet. When she looked at Gamzee, his shoulders were shaking and his hand was covering his mouth to muffle his laughter. “Gamzee! Oh my god, you tricked me, didn’t you?!” she yelped, reaching over and pounding on his arm with her small fists.

“I think I got it around... third go, but I wanted to see... how many I could make you do... hahaha!”

When he looks at Nepeta, she has the most sinister expression on her adorable face. She's hovering the eraser-end of the pencil over the worksheet, and she erases the corner of a number '7', grinning wildly.

"H-Hey now sis, let's not be so hasty...!" Gamzee loops his arms in a protective circle and elbows his way past Nepeta, taking advantage of his tall, lean stature to shield his paper and then drag it across the table until it's safely in his hands, pale skin and dark nail lacquer stark against the neon yellow printed page of homework. "Yes, she can't hurt you now, my precious."

Nepeta makes the distinct hand motion of 'I'm watching you' with her middle and index finger as Gamzee stuffs his homework back in his backpack, but she has a grin on her face.

"Oh hey, hold still. You gots a fuzzy in your hair..." Biting down on the tip of his tongue, the Capricorn is careful not to bump Nepeta's black cat-ear headband as he gently takes hold of a few strands of honey-brown hair and eases the little white ball of fibers away. "Got it. Guess it just wanted to hitch a ride with a fine sister is all!"

"Haha, maybe!" Nepeta responds, wiggling her toes in her scuffed Chuck Taylor's. "Gamzee, what's your next class?"

"My elective. I picked Art."

She's giggling behind her hand like she has a secret only she knows.

"Hey, don't leave me in the dark! What's so funny?" Gamzee pokes at her belly, her Gangnam Style t-shirt caving in with every successful prod he lands. She's so tiny and she nearly drowns in her clothes and it is motherfucking cute as hell.

"It's just that, my best friend Equius has Art next period, too! You better be careful, I think he has a crush on you..." she admits finally in a sing-song tone before bursting into another fit of giggles.

Gamzee let out a groan. "Was that why he was starin' at me weird-like during lunch? It is that guy, right? Kinda long shoulder-length blond hair all pin-straight, jeans, blue plaid shirt, tanned?" He really had thought they were boyfriend-and-girlfriend...

"Yeah, that's Equius! He can be a little shy, but he's really nice! Maybe you could be friends!"

The Makara gave her a blatant 'yeah right' expression. He could see the cogs and wheels in Nepeta's head spinning, and all of them were pointing full-steam ahead to 'be in Japanese anime yaois with my best friend please desu!'

"I guess I'll think about it..." he relented. "But what if I don't get along with him?"

"He's a bit stubborn like an old mule, but he really is a sweetheart. He moved here a few months ago from Brenham, Texas when his parents divorced... sometimes I think I might be the only friend he has. It's kind of sad."

Gamzee privately wonders if Equius has one of those funny Southern accents, but before he can ask Nepeta, the bell rings, and she’s busily scrambling about gathering up her things and putting them away in her tote bag. "Hey sis, lend me your hand."

He scribbles down his cell number in the middle of her palm with purple ink pen. "If you need to, you can call me to practice your speech. Or if you just want to text and talk about whatever, that's cool too."

"That's sweet Gamzee, thank you!" Nepeta hugged him tightly and tugged gently on the sleeve of his t-shirt, leading them through the jumble of their peers trying to all cram themselves out of the classroom door easily due to her small stature, a grin on her face as they emerged unscathed. "I have Sociology now."

"Fun times. If I don't see you later I'll talk to you at school tomorrow."

"That works. You'll want to head down this hallway, take a left, and then you'll end up in the main hall. Go past the two main staircases and eventually you'll come upon this corridor on your right that's a bit dimly-lit, since the darkroom for the photography class is down there, too. Second door on the left is the Art room. Good luck!" She waved cheerfully, leaving him to his own devices as she ushered to her last class of the day.

Watching her until he can no longer visibly decipher her person from Eve anymore, Gamzee shrugs and tries to remember her directions to the Art room, failing quite spectacularly. By the time the bell rings, he's still wandering around, scratching his head.

When the bell rings, letting him know that indeed he is late for his Art class, he groans audibly and scratches his scalp, skulking to the office to find a member of faculty that could possibly potentially point him in the right direction and save him from a trip to the detention hall after school. Knocking on the frame of the arch to the office doorway, Gamzee blinks when his vision zeroes in on another student sitting at the front desk and answering phone calls. He waves to get his attention, aware of his cheeks feeling warm.

Once the guy hangs up, he gives a small wave and stammers in his speech. "H... Hey, you're new, maybe? That is, I've never seen your face before... and we get out in three days for Thanksgiving break, what a strange time to enroll..." The last comment was said with a fair degree of thoughtfulness to it.

"You're all kinds of fuckin' adorable, ain't ya?" Gamzee tilted his head to the side and studied the other teenager, noting his mohawk, coffee-brown eyes, tanned skin, and whimsical hand gestures he used as he spoke.

"Huh? N...No! That is definitely a thing I am not, gosh!"

Holding his hands up and grinning toothily, the Makara winked and secretly took a fair amount of pleasure in the tomato redness of the other male's cheeks. "Nah bro, I'm just rustling your jimmies. I'm Gamzee, and I'm hella lost."

"Well... I'm Tavros, and..."

"Tavros what?"

"...N-Nitram. You're Gamzee what?" Tavros countered, raising a brow and folding his arms across his broad, muscled torso.

"Makara, bro."

"Oh... we didn't vote for your Dad... sorry..."

"Man, who the fuck asshole would?" Gamzee groaned audibly and smacked his forehead. "Your family is smart. My old man just likes the power and control. He ain't in Senate cause he's passionate about it, he just wants to boss bitches around. Suck thing is, he's legit at it."

"You sound like you don’t have a... very great relationship with him... I hope that it’s uhm... not too rough having to come home to that every day...”

The phone rang, and Tavros bit down on his bottom lip. Picking it up, he pressed down on the receiver and hung up the phone again quietly, cheeks pinking. "I... I'm probably going to get in trouble for that..."

Laughing softly, Gamzee shifted slightly in his stance. "He's never around. I stay with my older bro at his place. Just moved here from Detroit. My 'Ma passed on and you can't very well ignore a dying woman's last wish to take care her son, right?"

Tavros' smile was warm and friendly, like butter and cinnamon melting on raisin toast. Despite his emphatic denial, he was really cute... at least, the Capricorn thought so. He wouldn't mind getting to know him better. Maybe even when he learned the location of the Art room, he'd have to make a point of conveniently forgetting it so he could see him again. "So how's come you're not in class?"

"It's my free period. M-My mother is friends with the principal, so they worked out an arrangement for me to do a little reception work since I can't necessarily take advantage of early-dismissal..." Tavros sighed, and his face fell, but his somber expression was quickly replaced with another little wry grin.

"You're a senior, bro?"

"Mmhm. I'm seventeen. How about you?"

"Sixteen. Junior. I'll be seventeen on Christmas. Double the loot, homes."

"Nice... H... Hey, where's your class? If I take you, I might be able to save you a detention... t-this is your first day, right?" Tavros wheeled out from behind the reception desk and looked up at Gamzee, expectantly waiting for an answer.

"Yeah, my bro's coming to pick me up. Don't wanna fuck up his work schedule because I got a detention... I have Art right now."

The knowledge that Tavros was in a wheelchair didn't faze Gamzee any. He simply shrugged and smiled and followed the other out of the office when he was motioned to. The high school's main hallway appeared far more wide-open and vast when it was just him and Tavros, something the Makara could appreciate after a full day of being jostled about by other human bodies.

As they made their way towards the other end of the building, they talked about this and that, Tavros inquiring the whole while as to how he liked it here in New York so far, if he’d made any friends yet, if he liked his teachers, to which Gamzee would reply in his characteristic broken speech.

“So what are you going to do after school today? Go home, maybe hang out with a new friend?”

“My bro’s gonna take me back to his shop. Dunno how long for, I want to come home at a somewhat-decent time and maybe play some video games for a little bit with this guy I met at lunch today, he seems motherfuckin’ legit. But ‘til that time, I get to watch my brother stick needles in people, should be fun. Maybe he’ll let me poke a bitch, haha!”

“Oh, your brother works at a tattoo shop...”

“Naw Tav, he owns one. I haven’t seen it yet, but it’s in a strip center near a candy shoppe, a secondhand bookstore, and a comics store... If I get bored I’ll probably just go check out the swag down the way, see if they’ve got any Thor, that motherfucker is bad-ass, clubbing dudes with that hammer a’his...” Gamzee noted that the lighting was becoming a bit more sparse--they were getting close to the Fine Arts wing.

“Oh, I know the one you’re talking about! My brother Rufioh went there to get his septum done about half a year ago, and it looks really good... I was thinking about maybe getting one too when I turned eighteen in May...”

“You’d look real beast with one, my bro will hook you up for sure, Tav...” Giving the other a thumbs-up and a wink, Gamzee paused and sucked in a breath of air when the other wheeled down a long stretch of darkened hallway and stopped in front of a door, voices audible on the other side. “This my stop?”

“Yeah, I’ll come in with you so you don’t get in trouble.” Tavros knocked on the door politely with a rap of his knuckles and opened it, scooting on in and smiling and exchanging niceties with the teacher. “This is Gamzee. It’s his... first day here, and he got a bit lost on the way, so he came to the office, and... I decided it would be best to escort him here...”

The instructor, a middle-aged woman bedecked in multicolored baubles and a paisley-print dress, gave Gamzee a scrutinizing look before motioning for him to take a seat somewhere. Waving goodbye at Tavros, the dark-haired teen glanced around the room and noticed that the seat next to Equius was open--Nepeta had wanted them to try to make friends, and who was he to say no to a fine girl like her?

Taking the seat next to him and shrugging his backpack off his shoulders, he saw Tavros give a little wave to the blond... and frowned when Equius glared at the senior outright.

What was going on there?

“S’up with you, fucker, you gotta problem?” He raised an eyebrow, folding his arms casually behind his head as indigo met piercing blue irises head-on.

“Ah... I beg your pardon, but it isn’t really anything that has anything to do with you...” Equius mumbled in reply, thick Southern accent lacing his wording heavily.

“...Whatever, dude.” Gamzee waved a hand dismissively and shrugged his shoulders, the teacher coming over and handing him a student art packet with all his needed materials, along with that day’s assignment--a graphite pencil drawing of a still life. Peering over at Equius’ paper, he silently admired the flow of the pencilwork and the little subtle details on the vase of flowers that the blond southerner had chosen for his study piece. “Not bad.”

“Oh, thank you. I’m afraid I cannot... return the compliment because... you’ve yet to draw anything yourself...” Equius held onto his sunglasses perched atop his hair by the left temple piece to prevent them from slipping down onto his face as he drew.

“Calm your titties, Tex. Watch me work.”

Plucking a pencil, a blending stump, and a gummy eraser out of his art packet, Gamzee looked around the room before zeroing in on a stuffed teddy bear sitting innocently on their teacher’s desk. “Cute little thing. Think I’ll draw you.”

As he drew the basic outline and form for the shape of the stuffed animal, he could see out of the corner of his eye his classmate’s cheeks flush with color.

What a strange guy.

Letting out a small noise, Gamzee shrugged and continued drawing. He’d only have to put up with being gawked at by Equius like he were the greatest thing since buttered toast for another thirty minutes or so, then he could bolt on outtie.

He was definitely going to stick a needle in someone today, he didn’t care what Kurloz said.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I beg your pardon, but I believe I'm having a flashback.

"Oi, don't you have to go fetch a certain somethin', Kurloz?"

"Mmfph?" Kurloz issued a noise in reply, his mouth full of taco and lettuce. Registration settled on his features, then panic when he looked at the time on the wall clock. Hopping up out of the sketch station chair he'd pulled over to the reception desk to eat his lunch alongside Porrim and Cronus, he grabbed his jacket and car keys and raced out of the shop.

Cronus and Porrim both exchanged twin looks of amusement.

"Fail."

"I concur, my dear Cronus."

They went back to eating their local Mexican food truck fare in relative silence, Porrim taking small, dainty bites of her enchilada, and Cronus eating his tacos in around four bites.

_'Shit. Shit. Shit. Motherfucker!'_

Kurloz banged a fist down on the steering wheel as he drove, upset at himself for losing track of time. He'd promised Gamzee he'd be at the school to pick him up at 2:30, and _he wasn't there._ What the other must think of him, neglecting him like this. The 21-year-old went vastly over the speed limit in his efforts to get to the campus as quickly as possible, and he sighed in relief when he saw his younger sibling sitting out front on the curb texting away on his crappy old cellphone, head down low.

Gamzee still kept staring at his feet, even as he put his phone in his pocket and got in the car, backpack stashed right under the little gap in between the dashboard and glove compartment. Fiddling for his seatbelt, he buckled in and outright turned away from Kurloz, facing the window.

Frowning deeply, the elder Makara reached for Gamzee. He knew he'd been late, but he'd not expected him to react this poorly...

"Don't you put a fuckin' hand on me!"

Recoiling slightly, Kurloz faltered--but then with a scowl, he placed a palm on his baby brother's shoulder. No. He wasn't going to allow a repeat of yesterday. They were going to move forward.

_Enough of the games._

Aware that Gamzee could see his reflection mirrored in the glass, he mouthed a simple 'look at me' to the other, tightening his grip and hardening his indigo gaze insistently when the other didn't budge.

Gamzee let out a harsh exhalation of breath and faced forward, but he still kept his head down.

Letting out a snarl, Kurloz slammed his palm down flat against the steering wheel, the car horn honking loudly and making Gamzee jump in his seat and look his sibling in the eye.

He had the beginnings of a black eye, and his bottom lip was split and crusted over with blood. The little voice inside of Kurloz's head that he'd done a rather good job of ignoring for the past few hours up until now emerged from him with vengeance, clawing out of him wailing and screeching and crying for blood.

_'My mine my Gamzee my baby brother no you can't touch him only me you'll pay for this hunt you down find you make you pay make you hurt...'_

He'd only had him for two days and already he was willing to physically harm another human being for him. How long would it be before he would steal, maim, and kill for this boy? He was terrified to find out.

Sucking in a deep breath, he gingerly cradled the teen's face in his hands and just stared at him, guilt weighing him down. This was his fault. _He should have been there._ If he had just been there on time, this _never would have happened._ Kurloz leaned forward and pressed his forehead to Gamzee's, lips moving in silent, desperate apologies.

Gamzee's hands encircled his wrists in a vicegrip, and Kurloz could have sworn he was going to push him back and out of his personal bubble of space. But he kept him there, held onto him like a lifeline, an anchor, and his voice was so small as he spoke.

"You said you would be here and you weren't. You _motherfucker._ You left me _alone._ Don't you fuckin' understand you can't do that?"

He'd known. He'd known about Gamzee's latent fear of being abandoned the minute he saw him in that airport. He'd known, because the very first time he'd ever met his brother, Gamzee had asked him in that same tiny voice why he was leaving him, the unshed tears in his eyes fat and watery as they were both escorted away from each other by their respective parents.

He didn't cry this time. He was too old for tears. Or maybe he'd spared all of them for his mother. Gamzee tightened his grip on Kurloz's wrists and screamed, "Fucker, do you _UNDERSTAND ME?!"_ , his eyes wide and borderline desperate in his need to be acknowledged.

Gamzee wasn't fazed, nor nonplussed by the fact he'd gotten beat up. What mattered in his universe was that his sibling, the only person he had that felt like genuine family, didn't keep his promise. And Gamzee had to know, had to be sure he was going to, because he couldn't handle repeats of this. His anxiety wouldn't allow it of him.

Slackening his hold on Kurloz's wrists, he brought the elder Makara's arms around his shoulders, Kurloz hugging him tightly just as he anticipated he would. He could feel little ticklish whispers of breath on the shell of his ear as his brother again mouthed silent apologies. He was beginning to understand Nepeta's frustration--he wanted to scream at him to simply talk already, but he doubted it would be so easy. "You _promised_ my Mom, Kurloz. I know she didn't reach out to Dad. She wanted you to take care of me. He's just a nosy fuck who can't let her go so he just had to make that lousy phone call and convince her to make my stay with you a temporary thing. But even still... You _can't_ break that promise."

He has his face buried in his brother's chest as he speaks, the smell of cigarettes and his spicy, woodsy cologne with faint vanilla undertones rich and heady. Inhaling his scent deeply, Gamzee just holds onto him, fingers clinging to the ribcage of his skeleton-print hoodie as he closes his eyes.

_He'd just been minding his own business, sitting on the sidewalk Indian-style talking on his cell to Karkat in an effort to curb the nervous feelings that were starting to brew up within him--Kurloz was going on forty minutes late, and the campus was dead except for a few stragglers here and there._

_"Is he **STILL** not there yet?!"_

_"Maybe he got caught in traffic?" Gamzee bites down on his thumb and sighs when his teeth accidentally chip his lacquer. He'll have to fix it when he gets home._

_"OH MY GOD. Gamzee. GAMZEE. Are you **FUCKING KIDDING ME** right now?! TRAFFIC? **TRAFFIC?!** MY GODDAMNED GRANDMA VANTAS DRIVES SLOWER THAN THE **SEVEN FUCKING YEAR ITCH** AND SHE WOULD HAVE MADE IT THERE BY NOW."_

_"You think he forgot about me, bro?"_

_"HEY. I DIDN'T SAY THAT. BUT IF HE DID FORGET ABOUT YOU, I WILL FUCKING **SHIT** ON HIM. IT WILL BE A SHIT SO **RANK** AND SO **FOUL** THAT THEY'LL BE FORCED TO START CALLING IT A DIRTY KARKAT IN MY HONOR."_

_"Karkat! My God!"_

_"SHUT UP KANKRI **MOVE OUT**."_

_Gamzee can hear the slightly-muffled voice of Karkat's older brother chiding him on his language in the background, and he smiles. Before, he would have done anything to get away from Kankri's epic-length lectures. Now, hearing one feels like home._

_"And furthermore--!"_

_"AHLALALALAH **EAT ME**!"_

_"I'll have you know, the mental imagery you're evoking with that sentence is very disturbing and quite triggering! Cannibalism is nothing to jok--"_

_The sound of a door slamming loudly can be heard even through the receiver._

_"Now, where the fuck were we?" Karkat snarls furiously._

_Gamzee laughs and covers his face with his hand not holding his phone. "Holy motherfuckin' messiahs above, you ain't got no damned clue how much I love you and miss you, bro."_

_"Aww, the faggot loves his boyfriend, how sweet."_

_Looking off to the side, Gamzee raises an eyebrow at two teenagers approaching him, one lean, wiry, and dark-haired, the other short, husky, and brunet._

_"Gamzee, the fuck is going on?!"_

_"Homophobia at its finest, best friend. Ain't no big thing..." Giving the guys a cheeky grin and choosing not to engage them, Gamzee turned to face forward again and ignored them in favor of his phone conversation._

_"I AM GETTING **REALLY** SICK OF THIS SHIT."_

_"Hey, faggot, I'm talking to you!" the skinny one bellowed, apparently not liking being disregarded in front of his friend._

_"I can damn well motherfuckin' see that, but this fucker right here, unfortunately for you, is having a conversation with his "boyfriend", so how's about we get our chat on another time, yeah?" the Capricorn wiggled his index and middle fingers where appropriate for proper emphasis._

_"Oh Gamzee, you called me your boyfriend. **I'M FUCKING SWOONING**." Karkat uttered an emphatic sigh in a high-pitched falsetto._

_"Anythin' for you, my best friend that I am in super-secret homoeroticas with." Gamzee grinned, shrugging his backpack off his shoulders and facing away slightly from the other boys as he unzipped the front pocket and poked around for his leftover cucumber slices and carrot sticks from lunch, his stomach growling slightly._

_"Hey, newfag."_

_A fist connected with the left side of Gamzee's bottom lip, his piercings throbbing painfully as the skin was torn and broken and blood oozed from the cut. Gasping loudly and sucking in a harsh breath of air, the Capricorn dropped his phone in his shock of being hit. Reaching over for it, he let out a pained noise when a sneaker came down flat on top of his hand._

_Automatically recoiling, he grasped onto his hand and flinched when another punch was issued his way, this one directly over his right eye._

_He could hear Karkat screaming his name from the receiver._

_"What the fuck is your problem?" He shakily got to his feet, dizzy and reeling from the hits to his face._

_The dark-haired kid picked up Gamzee's cellphone. "I think I'll keep this. Unless you want it back, faggot?" He promptly deposited it inside the waistband of his pants, and Gamzee grimaced visibly._

_"I ain't really no fag homes, but I don't wanna get in trouble seeing as how it's my first day here an' all... Just gimme back my fuckin' phone and we won't have no problems. I won't even tell nobody you hit me."_

_"Man Chris, let's just go, this guy's a loser!" the short stocky one yelled from a nice safe distance away._

_"I WILL FUCKING **KILL** YOU GET YOUR SCRAWNY ASS BACK OVER THERE AND GIVE HIM BACK HIS PHONE I WILL **EAT YOUR SOUL** \--"_

_"Haha, my pants are talking. Yeah, let's bounce."_

_The second the teen turned his back on Gamzee, he was on him in an instant, letting out an inhuman noise of rage as he grabbed him by his shoulders and headbutted him so hard he too saw stars for a second. Pushing him down belly first to the concrete, he stomped on the cradle of his spine with his boot, smiling at the sickening little crack he was rewarded with._

_"Holy shit, are you fucking crazy?! What if you paralyzed him?!" the brunet friend of his assailant shrieked._

_"Oops." Gamzee shrugged nonchalantly, leaning down and carefully turning the heavily-breathing dark-haired boy over onto his back. "Wiggle your toes, asshole."_

_Looking down, he saw the faint wiggle of digits in sneakers. "He's fine. Darn..." the Makara snapped his fingers. "Pardon me..." he dug around in the kid's pants for his phone. "Ah, there's the fucker. So, I really hate I'm gonna pull this card, but my Daddy is senator for your fine-ass state. You talk, you die. Have a good one."_

_"Gamzee..." Karkat began hesitantly when he heard rough breathing on the other end of the line._

_"S'up boyfriend?"_

_"Fuck off. Are you okay?"_

_"Honestly? No. I need Kurloz to be here, now." Gamzee plunked down on the sidewalk a fair good distance away from the boys who'd messed with him, wiping the blood off his lip and chin with the back of his hand._

_"Dirty Karkat, man, I'm telling you..."_

_"Bitch you nasty."_

_"You like it, you big fucking liar."_

_"You really think I'm going to parade around tellin' folks I'm half a fag, Karkat? Come on, bro..."_

_"Whatever. Also, they called you newfag...?"_

_"NO. I DO NOT GET ON MOTHERFUCKIN' 4CHAN. They’s probably just called me that because I’m the new kid."_

_"It's fucking hilarious, **COME ON**."_

_"NO. Also, be online tonight, we're playing TF2 against some guy I met at school who reps blue team. We gotta show him red team is where it’s at. I need my Medic."_

_“Ugh, FINE. Try and get on a server that has decent assholes though! I’m SICK AND TIRED of people constantly calling for a Medic just to **FUCK** with me!!”_

_“Will do, boyfriend.”_

_“AND STOP CALLING ME THAT I’M TOO AWESOME TO BE YOUR BOYFRIEND.”_

_“Can I text you until Kurloz gets here?”_

_“Yeah, that’s cool. I suspect Kankri is probably outside my door waiting to lecture me since I slammed it in his face, you know how he is...” Karkat groaned, rubbing his face and looking down at the little crack of light underneath his door. Indeed there was a bit of shadow interference. “ **I KNOW YOU’RE OUT THERE, ASSHOLE**. I gotta go. See you later.”_

_“Bye, Karkat.”_

“Kurloz. Karkat’s coming to see me. There’s no point in us discussing it. I’ve been through hell and I need him. Please.” Gamzee murmured against his brother’s chest, eyes still closed tightly. He only opened them when a gloved hand gently tilted his chin upwards. The only response he was issued was a simple nod, nothing more, nothing less. The elder Makara seemed to understand, and for that, he was grateful.

 _‘What happened?’_ Kurloz mouthed, gesturing to his own lip and with his index finger and his eye, mirroring the spots where Gamzee had been injured.

“It’s nothing, don’t worry about it.”

Settling his eyes downcast, Kurloz reached into his pocket and took out his phone. Breaking the embrace, his thumbs flew over the touch screen of his Galaxy S III as he sent a quick text to his brother’s phone.

Giving him a quizzical expression, Gamzee takes out his phone when it buzzes in his pocket, and he reads the message Kurloz just typed, eyes flitting from side-to-side.

_I MADE A PROMISE._  
 _TELL ME WHAT HAPPENED?_  
 _#:o(_

“I was sitting on the sidewalk of the school waiting for you, wondering where the fuck you were. I was getting really nervous and anxious, so Karkat called me to keep me company and to calm me down. We were just... talking. Then two idiots come up and start calling me a faggot. I normally don’t let that shit bug me, they’re just words, and it ain’t nobody’s business what I am. I just ignored them, but then one of them threw a punch, split my lip. Lost my phone, reached for it, stomped on my hand...” Gamzee held up his injured hand, the knuckles split open and bruising, “...Then he threw another punch, gave me a shiner. Tried to make off with my phone. Karkat was still on the line, heard the entire fucking thing, was screaming like a motherfuckin’ banshee. Waited ‘til he turned his back to me, headbutted him, shoved him to the ground, stomped on his spine. Didn’t paralyze him or nothin’, he was able to walk off with the help of his friend and he could wiggle his toes. Shame, too. I had to pull the Daddy card to get ‘em to not say nothin’, that was embarrassing.”

Kurloz kept his face relatively expressionless as he typed out another text.

_YOU GOT LUCKY NO ONE WAS SERIOUSLY INJURED._  
 _I’M PROUD OF YOU FOR IGNORING THEM._  
 _NOT SO MUCH FOR ENGAGING THEM..._  
 _BUT HOPEFULLY THEY’VE LEARNED THEIR LESSON._

“Yeah. No more spine-stomping, I get it.”

_I’M GOING TO RUN US BY WAL-MART REALLY QUICK._  
 _WE DON’T HAVE A FIRST-AID KIT AT THE SHOP._  
 _ONLY BAND-AIDS, AND YOUR HAND NEEDS TO BE BANDAGED PROPERLY._  
 _YOU CAN MEET MY BEST FRIEND._  
 _EVENTUALLY I’LL GET TO MEET YOURS._

“I met his little brother today at school. I met a lot of people at school. You would think that in such a huge city like this that so many people wouldn’t be all interconnected an’ shit, but... guess not...” Gamzee shrugged, turning and facing forward and adjusting his seat belt more comfortably as Kurloz too stared ahead and shifted the car from park into drive and drove down the long stretch of driveway leading up to the highschool before popping on his right turn signal.

 _‘Go on...’_ he mouthed, wanting to hear more about Gamzee’s day at school.

“Just... meeting Sollux. He gave me his gamer-tag and we’re going to play TF2 together tonight. Nepeta, she’s really nice. You were right about her. She helped me with my Math homework during study hall. And then I met this guy who’s a grade above me who’s older sibling got a septum piercing from you. Tavros Nitram. I liked him. It was weird though, he took me to my Art class because I got lost, and this other kid just glared at him like he was ridden with that bubonic plague shit. Some guy from Texas, blond hair. Equius. Yeah, horsey name.”

Kurloz flushed darkly and gripped the steering wheel tightly. He remembered the last name Nitram quite well; he was a customer that he would be hard-pressed to ever forget. He’d came in sporting a red-and-black mohawk, arms crawling with tribal tattoos but no piercings. On his arm was an attractive muscular blond with pin-straight long blond hair wearing sunglasses, a bit of a chatty Cathy and kind of clingy with a heavy Southern accent.

They were a bit of an odd couple, but who was Kurloz to judge? He was getting paid to shove needles through flesh, not analyze people’s love lives. What were their names... the blond had a horsey-sounding name too, but in a literal sense. His name almost sounded like you were saying the word ‘horse’... Horse... horse... Horuss! And the other one, the other one was Rufioh, he couldn’t forget him, that would have been...

_“I think I’ll stay out here and look at the horse tattoos. Be brave!” Horuss grinned widely, waving at Rufioh and turning to focus his attentions back on all the assorted flash artwork on the walls._

_“I’m always brave, doll...”_

_Kurloz had taken Rufioh in the back and drawn the curtain. The mohawked man had let out a chuckle at the multi-colored paint splatters on the wall and the words **‘NO WHINING NO BITCHING NO MOANING’** finger-painted on the walls by Kurloz’s own hand. “You do this yourself, babe...?”_

_Nodding, Kurloz got out a pen and had Rufioh initial the bag that the sterile instruments were in before putting on a pair of black rubber gloves and breaking the seal. Making sure the other was comfortable, he cleaned the area he was going to pierce with antiseptic, smiling slightly when the other man wrinkled his nose at the scent that wafted up into his nostrils._

_“...You don’t talk much, do you, babe?”_

_Shaking his head ‘no’, Kurloz pinched onto the small bit of flesh of Rufioh’s nasal cartilage wall, and clamped it, smirking darkly at the little ‘ow’ the other uttered when he did so. Weenie._

_“...I think that’s hot... I can dig quiet guys... Horuss talks all the time... Kind of drives me insane...”_

_Grasping hold of the single-use needle, Kurloz motioned for him to take a deep breath. When Rufioh did so, he quickly pierced the area, and made a gesture for him to exhale as he removed the needle and unclamped the skin. He carefully inserted the jewelry and threaded the ball, and wiped any excess blood away tenderly before disposing of the piercing materials and removing his gloves._

_Handing Rufioh a mirror, he let the other look at his reflection in the glass._

_“Haha, that looks bad-ass... thanks, babe...”_

_Turning around and reaching to pull back the curtain, Kurloz let out a faint, barely-audible noise as he was grasped by the wrist and pulled back and into Rufioh’s arms, all-too-aware of their height differences now that he was standing up and in such close proximity._

_“Hey... I have to thank you first...”_

_Kurloz’s eyes went wide as lips were pressed to his, gentle, yet firm, insistent._

_Holy shit._

_This was his first gay kiss. This was his first gay kiss and he was having it with a customer that he’d not even known five minutes and dear sweet baby messiahs this actually felt kind of nice, was that his tongue yes that was definitely tongue holy--_

_He could definitely get into this. This kissing other guys thing wasn’t so bad._

_Pulling back when air became a necessity, Kurloz gingerly touched his bottom lip and gave Rufioh a little glance, the mohawked male smiling at him and picking up the pen he’d used to mark the bag with the piercing equipment. Taking hold of the piercer’s hand, he wrote down a phone number and his name. “...It’s not been working out with him and I for a while now... Been needing a reason to say goodbye... Maybe you could be it? Call me, text me, whatever... I want to get to know you...”_

“Broooo... Bro. Bro. Bro. Bro. BRO!”

Kurloz banged his head on the steering wheel, the horn honking loudly.

“...Motherfucker, you okay over there? Man, you spaced out when I was talkin’ ‘bout how the beginning of my day went... S’matter, did you get all nostalgic on me?” Gamzee scratched his scalp confusedly, completely bewildered by the way his sibling was acting. “Was like you all up and just went inside your own head... I mean, I know I only gots a permit and whatnot, but I’d been yellin’ for you to go for like five minutes now... Wally-world, remember?”

_Oh._

Smiling and nodding at his baby brother, Kurloz glanced at the road before making a right turn, raking his hand through his hair uneasily. Gamzee was right. It was a little disconcerting how inexplicably his life was becoming intertwined with the lives of those of Kurloz’s friends and their family members. Like some sort of chain reaction or train wreck waiting to happen.

Or maybe Kurloz himself was just the train wreck.

For what felt like the hundredth time in only two days, Kurloz felt himself begin to wonder if he was really the right person to be looking after Gamzee.

The Mexican food in his stomach began to churn as he drove towards the nearest Wal-Mart.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You think you're cooler than me.

“Aww, come on, that was a quality spot...” Gamzee threw his hands up in the air and let out a groan. “The fuck you bein’ so picky for?”

Kurloz gives his little brother a deadpan expression, and points out a cart pusher in jeans and a navy blue sweatshirt wearing a bright neon orange flak vest gleefully playing around with the shopping carts and doing a piss-poor job of steering them into the cart corrals. Gamzee watches mesmerized as the cart pusher loses control of his cart and it goes crashing into someone’s vehicle.

The employee lets out a loud squawk and does this weird little flaily dance all while reaching into his pocket and taking out a pad of post-it notes and a pen. It isn’t until he slaps a note on the car that he visibly relaxes and smiles, taking the cart and calmly pushing it into the corral... And then he finds another one and lets out a joyous ‘wheeeee!’ as he hops on it like it were some kind of amusement ride.

“...Yeah, park really motherfuckin’ far away. Like really far away, bro.”

Smirking and nodding, Kurloz takes a spot in the nosebleed section of the parking lot far away from any other cars and especially from shopping carts, and unbuckled his seatbelt after killing the engine. As soon as he’d shut the car door, the very same cart pusher was running towards him at top speed, arms held open wide and a screech echoing from his lanky form.

“KURRRRLOOOOOTHHHHHHHHZZZZZ!!”

“...Aw hell no!” Gamzee ducked behind the Civic, eyes wide in bewilderment. _This_ was his older brother’s best friend? _The weirdo cart pusher?_

_Sollux’s brother actually **worked** for Wal-Mart??_

No. _Does not compute._ Sollux's sibling was supposed to work at the bank on the inside and be ridiculously intelligent and have swagger oozing from every pore of his being, not be a bitch for America's biggest corporate retail giant. This guy was a loopy little fucker who'd probably had one too many hits off the wizard before clocking in and didn't know which way was up or down. That, and he needed a haircut. _Holy shit,_ did he need a haircut. He was putting all the kids on Google image search for 'emo hairstyles' to shame.

No way was this his big bro's main motherfucker. He just wasn't legit enoug-- Aaaand Kurloz had just scooped up that cart pusher into a tight hug and was swinging him around in a circle like he were the most precious thing in his universe. Okay, apparently this _was_ his best friend.

You could see the love plastered plain as day on his sibling’s face. Gamzee knew that expression, he knew it all too well--it was one he’d worn daily back in Detroit in Karkat’s presence. It was the look of someone who thought the sun and the moon rose with another person. Just like Gamzee deliriously loved his best friend, apparently so too did Kurloz... despite his...

What _was_ wrong with him, anyways?

“Bro... what happened to hi--”

“KURLOTHHZ THERE’S TWO OF YOU!! TWO!!” Mituna yelled, approaching Gamzee and gently hugging him with a huge grin on his face, his dark brown, dandelion-like hair obscuring the top half of his face and getting in his eyes.

No wonder he was constantly crashing the carts into customer vehicles. 

Shaking his head ‘no’, Kurloz motioned to Gamzee, and then back at himself with a smile.

“...GAMTHEE?”

“I’m motherfuckin’ Gamzee, and you’re motherfuckin’ touchin’ me, and I don’t motherfuckin’ like it, dude!” Gamzee grumbled, folding his arms across his chest and flinching when Kurloz issued him a harsh glare.

“...I’M THORRY. I DON’T THLIKE IT WHEN THRANGE PEOPLE TOUCH ME EITHER.” Releasing his hold on the younger Makara, Mituna bounded over to Kurloz and held his hand with an apologetic look at the smaller Capricorn. 

Gamzee felt a slight pang of jealousy at the easy nonchalance that the pair radiated like a halo, the warmth of it encircling them and making him feel immediately like a third wheel. “So what, you told him about me or somethin’?”

“HE TELLS ME EVERYTHING! ...HEY LIL’ MAMA LEMME WITHPER IN YOUR EAR...”

Grinning, Kurloz cups his palm behind his ear and leans over so his shorter friend can yell in his ear. Mituna never whispers, but he doesn't mind. When little bits of his personality shine through, the one Kurloz remembers before Mituna's accident, it's beautiful. He misses him like that--snarky, intelligent, perverted, and daring, too much so for his own good.

"I LOVE YOU!!"

But he's also perfect like this. Like two sides to a coin. Kurloz feels fortunate to have been witness to both these faces of Mituna. He points to his eye, then makes a heart with his fingers, silently gestures towards Mituna, and finally holds up a hand, only his index and middle fingers prominent and straight, the other digits curled.

The gleeful little shriek Mituna utters in response melts his heart, and he brings him in close for another tight hug. He pulls back only when the other starts to wriggle and squirm with a slight laugh, and he ruffles Mituna's unkempt hair. He'll need to cut it for him when he gets the chance. Motioning to Gamzee and his injuries, he gives his best friend an apologetic expression as he makes his fingers 'walk' towards the Wal-Mart.

"CAN I COME TOO?" Mituna bounces from foot-to-foot, a hopeful look on his face.

Shaking his head, Kurloz gestures to all the stray carts littering the parking lot, and Mituna takes off like a bullet, gathering up two in a row, always two, hollering loudly, "BYE KURLOOOTHHZ BYE GAMTHEEEE!" as he resumes his job duties.

"Bro..." Gamzee begins hesitantly as they walk inside the retail giant.

Kurloz looks at him and simply holds up his index finger to his lips, 'shh'ing him.

"...Oh come on! Really. _Really?!"_

The look Kurloz gives him lets him know he is treading on dangerous ground, but he doesn't care--he has to know what's going on there. "I just wanna know what's up with him, gosh. Don't'cha think you could motherfuckin' least give me that?"

Sighing and relenting as they make their way to the Pharmacy section of the store, Kurloz takes out his phone and starts texting.

_HE HAS BRAIN DAMAGE._  
 _AND HE IS WAY MORE OF A BAD-ASS THAN YOU WILL EVER BE._  
 _JUST SO YOU KNOW._

"Hey!" Gamzee scowls, smacking Kurloz with his bad hand and making an awkward, pained face as he tries not to yell the loud 'motherfuck' the both of them know he wants to. "...Don't you say a motherlovin' word..."

Kurloz gives his younger sibling a look like he's an idiot.

"...For the love of the fuckin' messiahs, shut up!"

Blinking and shrugging his shoulders, Kurloz simply walks up to the shelf with all the first aid supplies and scans them with his purple-blue eyes.

"I am too a bad-ass..." the shorter male grumbles as they thumb through medical tape and gauze and other assorted knickknacks. Kurloz decides to grab a little red first aid kit filled with all the necessaries, seeing as how the shop had nothing of the sort on hand. Cronus would probably say they didn't need such a thing, but the Aquaphor and gauze pads were for tattoos, not injuries.

Shrugging, Kurloz quickly sends another text to his little brother's phone and motions for him to follow to the front end of the store to check out.

_YOU GOT IN A SCHOOLYARD FIGHT._  
 _MITUNA WAS IN AN ILLEGAL STREET RACE ON A MOTORCYCLE WITH NO HELMET._  
 _NO CONTEST._

After reading the text, Gamzee looks longingly at Kurloz's smartphone, unable to disguise the want in his eyes. "Can I have a new phone? Sollux had to take mine apart today at lunch and like... prod it and shit. And then it was up against balls and I ain't even gonna lie to you, it was kind of a jungle down there... Plus there’s the whole thing about not being able to pay the bill so Dad told me to send in the death certificate to Mom’s phone provider and they’re cutting me off at the end of the month...”

Smacking his forehead with the palm of his hand, Kurloz has no choice but to nod his assent. The third reason was good enough on its own, but the second? That sealed the deal. Making a disgusted face, he’s wracked by a full-body shudder as they get in one of the 20-or-less lines. As he’s digging for his wallet in his back pocket, his phone vibrates in his front left pocket. Taking it out, he reads a text from Cronus, and bites his lips as he realizes he’s probably in trouble for taking so long.

_oi_  
 _vwhere are you_  
 _you hawve customers for the lovwe of god_  
 _wve can only tell them to bloody vwait for you for so long you knowv_  
 _stop dicking around and get back here_

Setting down his merchandise on the counter and taking out a twenty and silently handing it to the cashier, he texts a reply with one hand, accepting his change with the other and stuffing it in the plastic bag along with his receipt, motioning for Gamzee to follow as he speed-walks back to the car.

_KIDDO GOT IN A FIGHT AT SCHOOL._  
 _HAD TO RUN TO WAL-MART TO GET SOME STUFF TO PATCH HIM UP._  
 _ON MY WAY BACK._

“KURRRRLOOOOOTHHZZZ!” Mituna waves from his carts, zooming by them and blowing the pair both sloppy air-kisses, nearly losing his balance in the process but recovering and laughing like he had not a care in the world.

_you’re at wval-mart?_  
 _vwhen are you going to introduce me to the cart-pusher_  
 _he’s cute for a complete idiot_

_I’LL KILL YOU._  
 _#:o)_

Returning Mituna’s air-kiss with one of his own, Kurloz unlocks the Civic with a press of his thumb on the car remote, and scrambles in the driver’s seat, flinching and giving Gamzee a wild-eyed expression when the teen slams the door.

“...Sorry?” Gamzee has a sheepish look on his face.

Kurloz makes a motion like he’s choking and shaking someone before he sticks the keys in the ignition and twists, the car roaring to life. Making sure Mituna was a safe distance away, he buckled up and made sure Gamzee had done the same before he shifted into drive and took the back road to get onto the main street.

He could only imagine how many potential clients had walked out because he wasn’t there. He was the only piercer on duty because they’d never had a need to hire another one. He worked long hours because it was a luxury he could afford. Now that he had Gamzee, it might not be that easy.

When he pulls up into the parking lot of the tattoo shop, Cronus is outside pacing and smoking a cigarette, his nerves clearly getting to him. He relaxes visibly and throws an arm around Kurloz’s shoulders in relief once the other is out of his Civic. “Thank fuck, we had two walk out on us, it was damn well embarrassin’...”

“Bro, who’s John Travoltass over there?” Gamzee says when he gets out of the car, and this time thankfully shuts the passenger side door with significantly less force.

Cronus balks, and he looks from Gamzee, to Kurloz, then back to Gamzee again. “He looks just like you, Mary mother a’God.”

 _‘When it slows down, I have to run by Verizon and get him put under my plan. He was under his mother and his contract is expiring at the end of the month...’_ Kurloz signs, swiping Cronus’ cigarette and taking a drag off of it before moving his arm off his shoulder and motioning for Gamzee to follow him inside.

“Y’can’t bleedin’ do that another day?!”

Sticking up a middle finger at Cronus, Kurloz replies with rapid motions of his hands, _‘You would do it for Eridan, so eat me, motherfucker.’_

The Scotsman waits until both Makaras are inside before smirking in a self-satisfied fashion and murmuring to himself, “That could be arranged...”

Cronus looks up when he hears knocking on the window, and he blinks when he sees Gamzee staring at him. The teenager crosses his eyes and sticks out his tongue at him and grins, and the tattooist scowls and issues the kid a goofy face of his own, puffing out his cheeks and using his hands to mimic little fins, to which the Capricorn rolls his eyes and responds with a blatant thumbs-down.

Gritting his teeth, Cronus splays open his middle and index finger in a ‘v’ shape and darts his tongue through the gap, crossing his eyes. Gamzee raises an eyebrow, takes out his phone, and types something, plastering it to the window and giving the greaser a little smirk while pointing to it and nodding.

Squinting his violet eyes, near-similar in color to Kurloz and Gamzee’s, Cronus flips the kid the bird after he reads the message on the screen.

_YoU WiSh mOtHeRfUcKeR! ;o)_  
 _HoNk_

Suddenly, Gamzee’s holding up one of Cronus’ leftover tacos, wiggling his eyebrows.

“Oi, don’t you fuckin’ dare...!” the Ampora warns, clenching the hand not holding his cigarette into a fist.

He’s opening his mouth and bringing it closer to his lips...

“I’ll bloody damn well kill ya!”

It was as if he could hear the crunch of the shell despite the kid being indoors and him being outside. Smashing his cigarette butt out on the glass right in between where Gamzee’s eyes were, Cronus stomped inside and hovered over the kid, sneering at him and grabbing him by the collar of his shirt.

“KURLOZ!” Gamzee yelled, eyes going wide--he was just teasing, really! Okay, maybe he was purposely and deliberately trying to get a rise out of him, but his brother didn’t need to know that...

Sighing, Kurloz quickly threaded the ball on his customer’s eyebrow piercing and wiped away the excess blood. Tossing away the piercing needle, clamp, and any other biohazardous materials in the appropriately labeled waste container, he yanked off his rubber gloves and politely escorted the young lady he’d pierced out from the back...

Only to promptly stomp right over to Cronus and yank him off of Gamzee and shove him roughly on the shoulder.

“...He was purposely antagonizin’ me!”

_‘He’s a kid! And he’s my brother! I don’t give a fuck if you put your hands on me, but don’t touch him!’_

“I didn’t mean no harm, for Christ’s sake--Y...You owe me a fuckin’ taco!”

_‘Oh for the love of--!’_

Kurloz throws his hands up in the air and gives Gamzee a look that promises they will have a discussion about his antics once he’s finished with his next customer, a twenty-something woman bedecked in tattoos and piercings wanting to redo an old vertical sternum that had rejected over time. The younger of the two doesn’t even bother playing innocent--he simply takes another bite from the taco he’d snatched from Ampora and is careful to not open the wound on his bottom lip.

Before Kurloz can draw the curtain back and escort his next customer into his work area, a slim, feminine hand is on his shoulder and squeezing gently.

“Kurloz. I will watch them and make sure the both of them behave. Be at ease,” Porrim nods, her pitch-black hair stark against her snow-white skin making her look all the more beautiful, like some ethereal creature from worlds unknown.

_‘Give Cronus one of my tacos so he’ll stop making a fuss. Gamzee can’t help if he’s hungry.’_

Or maybe he was just being ornery, like Cronus had insisted.

“Of course. Go on now, I’ll not keep you from your job any longer.”

Gamzee waits until Kurloz is back behind the curtain before he slyly takes out his phone and begins texting Karkat.

_At bRo’s jOb_  
 _jUsT StOlE A TaCo fRoM JoHn tRaVoLtA_  
 _;o)_

For shits and giggles, he decides to forward the message to Sollux as well. It isn’t long 'til he gets a response from Karkat.

_**THAT DOESN’T EVEN MAKE ANY SENSE WHAT THE FUCK GAMZEE.** _  
_**WHAT THE HELL WOULD JOHN TRAVOLTA BE DOING IN A DUMP LIKE YOUR BROTHER’S TATTOO SHOP.** _  
_**OH LET ME GUESS.** _  
_**HE’S COME TO GET NICK CAGE’S FACE TATTOOED ON HIS ASSHOLE TO COMMEMORATE THE 15 YEAR ANNIVERSARY OF FACE/OFF.** _

_sUrE WhY ThE FuCk nO--_

He’s interrupted in the middle of his text by one from Sollux.

 _goiing by the 2hiitty whiim2iical text iim gue22iing thii2 ii2 gamzee._  
 _care two elaborate a2 two how you 2tole a taco from john travolta?_

Shrugging and discarding the message he was going to send to Karkat, Gamzee pulls up the camera function on his phone, and points it towards himself, taking a bite of taco and leaning towards the side to make sure Cronus is in the shot. He sits up straight and looks at the picture he took once the tell-tale shutter sound goes off, and he snickers to himself and forwards it to both Sollux and his best friend.

_**LOOKS MORE LIKE SOME WANNABE GREASER DOUCHEBAG TO ME.** _  
_**ARE YOU SURE ITS SAFE TO STEAL FOOD FROM HIM HE COULD HAVE HERPES.** _  
_**GAMZEE I AM NEVER KISSING YOU AGAIN.** _

_ii dunno dude he 2eem2 more liike a keniickiie two me..._  
 _but ii can 2ee where you came up wiith john travolta_  
 _2o you ju2t jacked a taco from hiim?_  
 _niice_  
 _miind 2hariing what happened two your face though bro?_

Oh, yeah. Sollux didn’t know. There was no way he could’ve.

_wAs tAlKiNg oN ThE PhOnE WhIlE WaItInG On mY BrO To cOmE GeT Me_  
 _ThEsE FuCkInG IdIoTs sTaRt hArAsSiNg mE, cAlLiNg mE NaMeS_  
 _tRy tO RuN OfF WiTh mY PhOnE_  
 _gOt iNtO A ScUfFlE_  
 _No bIg tHiNg :o)_

_iif your brother ii2 late agaiin you can call me_  
 _ii know where he liive2 at and iit2 not two far away from my hou2e_  
 _or you could ju2t come over two miine_

_dUde, SeRiOuSlY?_  
 _ThAnKs, ThAt’d bE SwEeT_  
 _i dOn’t tHiNk iT WiLl hApPeN AgAiN BuT It’s nIcE To hAvE ThE OpTiOn aVaIlAbLe_  
 _:o)_

_no prob bro_

_**OH MY GOD GAMZEE I WAS JUST FUCKING JOKING WHEN I SAID I WOULDN’T KISS YOU ANYMORE.** _  
_**DON’T YOU FUCKING IGNORE ME.** _  
_**I’LL CALL YOU I SWEAR I’LL DO IT.** _

_wOaH, bRoMiGo, ChIlL YoUr mOsT ExCeLlEnT Of cOoKiEs_  
 _No nEeD FoR AlL ThAt fUsS NoW..._  
 _wE’Ve aLrEaDy tAlKeD LiKe tWiCe tOdAy_

_**FUCK YOU I DISTINCTLY REMEMBER ONCE UPON A TIME US TALKING ON THE FUCKING PHONE TEN TIMES IN ONE DAY.** _  
_**OR ARE YOU SO SIMPLE THAT YOU’VE FORGOTTEN.** _  
_**I’M CALLING YOU.** _

Rolling his eyes and smiling, Gamzee got up, taco in one hand and phone in the other and walked over slowly to the door. It had at most only been maybe about an hour and forty-five minutes since he’d last heard his voice.

He didn’t mind Karkat’s base urges to constantly check on him for the littlest and most insipid of things now that they were hundreds of miles apart from each other. It made him feel loved, secure. Happy to know that despite the distance, Karkat would always be there for him.

Instead of greeting him with a lazy ‘hello’, Gamzee smirked and said “Man, you really want the d, callin’ me like this all the time...” while he pushed open the door to the tattoo parlor.

Cronus spat out his soda.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Life is but one big disappointment. Get over it.

"He's rather something to watch, is he not?"

Glancing up from his little sketch of a skull sprouting demon wings, Kurloz glances over at Gamzee with a soft smile, and nods at Porrim in affirmation. The second he’d deposited his new phone into his wiggling, greedy hands, his younger sibling behaved like a perfect angel--Cut the Rope and Angry Birds were proving to be an excellent babysitter and time-waster.

Even Cronus was in a better mood once he’d gotten his stolen taco replaced.

“Oi, you gotta cut that one rope there, then you gotta push the candy with that there balloon--not so hard now! You’ll hit that stupid slag o’ a spider and pop the fuckin’ bubble!”

“Man, get off my dick, Johnny! I’ve never done played this motherfucker before!” Gamzee looked up from the screen, glaring at Cronus, who was seated right next to him and attempting to help him with the more difficult of levels.

“You’re just like me younger brother, always whinin’ an’ carryin’ on... Bet the lot o' you’d get on swimmin’ly!” the Scotsman retorted, not peeling his eyes away from the game.

“Not if he’s related to you I won’t!”

“Cronus, when do you get Eridan next?” Porrim inquired, taking a nail file out from the desk drawer and propping her feet up after kicking off her shoes. Kurloz motioned for a leg, and Porrim raised an eyebrow, but placed her foot on his lap, letting out a soft sigh when her co-worker began kneading the ball of her foot with both thumbs languidly.

“This comin’ week for your American Thanksgivin' holiday. He ain’t tickled about it in the least. He’d rather stay with his Daddy, everyone knows that, but unfortunately me ol' man has to take a bit of a jaunt o'er the pond back to Scotland."

“...Dude, Thanksgiving is legit. It’s like... the one day of the motherfuckin’ year it’s all bein’ socially acceptable to stuff your face proportionate to your body weight, man...” Gamzee balked, unable to wrap his head around how someone couldn’t like Thanksgiving.

“We’re Scottish.”

“But you’re getting your residence on in America. No excuse. Best done get a turkey and get to conforming.”

“Kurloz, does that mean we’re not on for Thanksgivin' this year anymore?” Cronus smirked and looked down at the smaller male with a triumphant expression, eyebrows lifting once.

The expression Gamzee issued the elder Makara was one of pure shock and horror. All Kurloz could do was mouth a ‘sorry’ his way and look at Cronus and sign, _‘I haven’t rescinded my invitation.’_

“Ah, swell then, mate! I’ll bring a puddin' and a bottle o’ proper brandy. And Bubbles, can’t leave him behind or he’ll pitch a fit.” Cronus grinned toothily, giving Kurloz a little two-finger salute.

“Can’t even fuckin’ believe this--” the younger Capricorn grit his teeth and let out a loud, angered noise when the candy didn’t fall into Om Nom’s mouth.

“Sorry there, but I’ve been havin’ Thanksgivin' with your brother since the lot o' us both turned eighteen.” The Aquarius wasn’t apologetic-sounding in the least as he nonchalantly shrugged his shoulders and indulgently got up from the black leather loveseat, digging in his pocket for his cigarettes and lighter and stepping outside to smoke up.

“That guy is a fuckin’ dildo, okay.”

Kurloz looked up from massaging Porrim’s small, dainty feet and sighed at the scathing tone in his baby brother’s voice. He wasn’t expecting them to get along perfectly, but he was hoping the two of them wouldn’t act like complete children in each other’s presence. Perhaps he could expect this kind of behavior out of Gamzee, given his teenage status, but Cronus? He was an adult, such things were beneath him.

“...I’ll take care of it, Kurloz. Cronus has had a bit of a poor attitude recently. Why don’t you go on ahead and clock out early? It’s ten... you have to have this one in bed at a semi-decent hour, yes?” Porrim reached for her shoes and slipped them on, stilettos making the faintest of noises as she centered her feet back on the linoleum tile.

Taking hold of her hands, Kurloz kisses them gratefully, the metal of his piercings cold against her flesh. Getting up, he pushed the chair he’d snatched from a sketching station back over to its former location, and whistled lowly to get Gamzee’s attention.

“...We leaving?”

Nodding once, Kurloz grabbed the plastic Wal-Mart bag and fished around inside, having already bandaged Gamzee’s hand and put a little ointment on his cut lip. He frowned when he couldn’t find his leftover change, only the receipt.

His younger brother wasn’t making eye contact.

Clearing his throat, the elder Makara tapped his boot expectantly, holding out his hand and wiggling his fingers.

“Aww, come on...” Gamzee relinquished the change with a pout, placing the ten, five, one, a couple quarters, dimes, nickles, and eight pennies into his sibling’s hand. His face lit up like the Fourth of July when Kurloz gave him back the ten dollar bill. “Sweet. Thanks, bro.”

_‘Wait here.’_

Stuffing his remaining change into his wallet and putting it in his back pants pocket, Kurloz went into the back and punched the time clock, ushering back out and putting back on his hoodie, sleeves covering up those of his multitude of tattoos that were currently visible to the naked eye. Zipping up his jacket and putting on his gloves, he dug his car keys out of his front pocket, grabbed his cell phone, and headed out the front door, waving a quick goodbye to Cronus and fully aware that his brother was right behind him.

“You clockin' out early, chief?” Cronus acknowledged Kurloz with a tilt of his head, exhaling white smoke from his nostrils.

Nodding and unlocking the car with the key remote, Kurloz watched as Gamzee shivered and got in. It was cold out and he’d not brought a coat with him. You could hear the ice and slush on the roads as vehicles passed by.

“Best get the ickle wee one on home then b’fore he freezes t’death. I’ll see you in the morrow.”

Rolling his eyes, but smiling at his business partner, Kurloz gets in the driver’s side door and plunks down unceremoniously in the seat, immediately turning on the heat when he hears Gamzee’s teeth chattering. Taking off his gloves, he hands them over to him, and the younger Makara immediately puts them on with a small noise of relief, Kurloz’s hands only slightly larger than his.

“Remind me... t’bring... a motherfuckin’... coat... t’morrow... shit... shitshitshit... freezin’ my balls...” Gamzee curls in on himself and tucks his knees up under his chin, clinging to them and shuddering.

Kurloz turns on the seat warmers, and leans over, buckling him in despite his ball-like state. He then puts on his own seatbelt, and glances into his mirrors to glimpse his immediate surroundings before shifting into reverse and pulling out of the parking space.

“Can you... make me something to eat... when we get home... fuckin’ hungry...” 

Moving the shifter into drive, Kurloz leans over and runs his fingers through Gamzee’s tangled mop of hair, giving him a slightly-concerned look and a nod. He continues threading his digits through his locks even as he drives out of the lot and onto the stretch of road leading back towards the apartment, noting only when they get to a red light that his breathing is starting to slow down some.

Warm air is coming from the vents full-blast, washing over his skin. His teeth aren’t chattering anymore, and he looks more peaceful, eyes even slipping closed. Taking his hand back and putting it on the steering wheel, Kurloz focuses his attentions forward as the light turns green, going straight down the road and popping on his signal to make a right turn at the 7-11, slush crunching under the tires of the Civic as he brakes considerably so as not to hydroplane on the ice.

The normally-fifteen minute drive takes him about twenty in his concern for both their safety on this cold November night. He’s not surprised when he punches in the code to the lot that the little gust of cold air wafting in makes Gamzee’s nose wrinkle and his eyes open. “Nn... roll up the window, Kurloz...!”

“Shh...” Kurloz thumbs his cheek impulsively, smiling when his sibling rubs into his touch like a cat. He’s slow going over the speed bumps, and isn’t even surprised to see that there are no good spots available for him to take in the immediate vicinity of his apartment building. Such is it when you work late hours. Pulling into a parking space a bit of a walk away, he puts the Civic in park and cuts the engine. Giving Gamzee a once-over, he takes off his jacket and wraps it around him snugly, rubbing his back and pressing a kiss to his temple.

“Motherfuck. I’m gonna turn into a damn popsicle...” Gamzee sucks in a deep breath of air, and grabs his backpack, getting out of the car and shutting the door (gently!), taking off in a sprint towards the apartment. Kurloz isn’t too far behind him, though he most definitely isn’t running. As he takes advantage of his long legs to walk in even strides, he locks up the car with two presses of the key remote, the first one locking the car doors and the second arming the vehicle alarm.

Gamzee is hopping from foot-to-foot and buried deep in Kurloz’s hoodie as he gives the elder a borderline-desperate look. “Lemme in, lemme in, fucker, lemme innnn!”

Already Kurloz’s teeth are beginning to chatter as he unlocks the door, Gamzee racing past him and letting out a screech of relief as he’s enveloped by warmth. The younger Makara belly-flops onto the living room carpeting and splays out, making a carpet angel and groaning happily as Kurloz shuts the door behind himself and locks up tight, breathing warm breath into his palms and rubbing them together. 

He grins widely at the comical display that is his brother, and nudges him with the toe of his shoe, holding his hands up and moving his thumbs like he’s playing a video game, to which Gamzee lets out a resounding “Oh!” and promptly gets up and races off to his room to boot up his Playstation 3 and load Team Fortress 2.

Kurloz in the meantime heads to the kitchen and opens the freezers door, glancing around at what he has available that he can heat up relatively quickly and bring to Gamzee. Shifting around a few items, he finds and takes out a little meat trio pizza and preheats the oven. He takes everything out of the packaging and puts the pizza in a pan, doctoring it up with a little bit more shredded mozzarella before sticking it in the oven and setting the timer.

He can hear Gamzee laugh loudly from his room, presumably he's on his headset, because he's dropping expletives like they're going out of style. Shaking his head, Kurloz loosens his tie and unbuttons his shirt as he heads into his own room to undress and put on a pair of sleep pants. His clothes are tossed in the laundry hamper and his boots are put back in the closet next to all his others.

"I'M SHRIVELING UP INTO A HUSK, BRO! FEED ME!"

Kurloz rolls his eyes and slips on some plain black flannel pajama pants and shuts the door to his room behind himself. The pizza isn't near being done yet, so he pokes his head in Gamzee's room to mouth at him to be patient.

Gamzee is playing as Soldier, and he's on the 2Fort map, his character carrying the intelligence and being shadowed by a Medic. He has a serious expression on his face, and he's biting on his tongue in concentration.

_"GAMZEE THIS FUCKER HAS YOUR TAG, IT'S A FUCKING SPY, KILL HIM!!"_

Kurloz blinks at the loud screech erupting from the TV speakers and watches intrigued as his little brother starts shooting at a red Scout bearing his same gamertag, terminallyCapricious. The red Scout starts shooting back, and Gamzee's slower character gets hit.

The Medic is healing him, but Gamzee's Soldier eventually succumbs.

_"Too bad bro!"_ A familiar voice snickers that Kurloz mentally registers as Sollux.

Gamzee lets out a groan as he's forced to spectate while waiting to respawn, but he lets out a holler when his Medic takes down the blue Spy masquerading as a red Scout with the bone saw weapon.

_"SUCK A DICK, TA."_

_"Is that an offer or a request? Ehehe..."_

_"OH MY GOD FUCK YOU."_

_"Name the date, time, and place and I'll see if I can fit you into my busy schedule, CG..."_

Kurloz snorts in amusement, and the noise makes Gamzee look up. "Oh, there you are. Where's food?"

_'Still cooking. Are we winning?'_

The grin on Gamzee's face gives him his answer. "By one point, dude. If we get the goods back home, then we win, but if blue takes this round it'll be up to the next match to decide who brings it to mama."

_"GAMZEE! PAY ATTENTION!"_ His Medic has the intelligence now, and is pretty much a sitting duck in the blue team's side of the fort without any other players to shadow or back him up.

_'Duty calls...'_ Kurloz salutes, and Gamzee snickers and issues him one in return, the older darting out of his room to go check on his pizza. Just a few more minutes. In the meantime, Kurloz decided to make himself comfortable on the living room sofa and turn on the television set to watch the evening news.

Pretty much the same generic nonsense--lottery numbers, gas station hold-up, apartment fire... he sits up straight when the timer on the oven goes off, and peers at Gamzee’s pizza, opening up the oven door fully and putting on some mitts to take out the hot pan. Setting it on top of the stove, he takes out the pizza slicer and cuts the pie into eight slices.

_“...And in other news, Senator Makara met with constituents today in Albany to discuss a proposed new law--”_

Kurloz lets out a loud, irritated snarl and plates up some pizza for Gamzee. The screen pans to a shot of his father, hulking and masculine, his long, messy black hair back in a ponytail and his fine suit pressed and tailored to his impressive figure as he speaks in a commanding, rasping tone. Kurloz takes the opportunity to exaggeratedly mock his only parent, mouthing along to the television even though he’s completely missing the mark on the wording, his hip jutted out and his hand on it as he holds up his finger and rolls his shoulders.

“Bro... the fuck are you doin’?”

Gasping and placing a hand over his chest, Kurloz whirls around and glares at Gamzee.

“Sorry, didn’t mean t’scare you. Heard the timer go off. What’cha doin’?”

Kurloz gestures to the television set.

“Oh... mocking our old man...” Gamzee grins. “That’s cool, I can get down with that.” He then promptly does a little finger-snap ditty and curls his lip down, squinting his eyes into a scowl and pointing at a faux audience as he mimics their father, too. He stops, however, upon sight of the pizza cooling in the pan. “Hey, hook me up!”

Kurloz puts half the pizza on a plate for him with a serving spatula, and Gamzee gives him a look. “Yo, that’s it?”

_‘You are such a little’_ \--“fat-ass.”

The younger Makara’s eyes are wide as saucers, but not so much as his brother’s. Kurloz looks like he’s seen a spook, he’s so statuesque. The only thing that is moving are his hands, fingers twitching and palms quaking. He can’t keep his hold on the spatula, and it goes clattering to the ground.

“Kurloz... did you just--” Gamzee isn’t even afforded the luxury of finishing his sentence. His older sibling gives him this hollow look and leaves the kitchen, heading down the hallway and into his bedroom, door slamming shut so hard the frame shakes.

Biting down on his bottom lip, Gamzee replays that single word over and over in his head obsessively like a mantra as he turns off the oven and takes his plate of pizza to his room, pausing only to place his hand on Kurloz’s door. He wants to knock, he wants to understand, but the locked door in his way is just another means of his brother putting up a wall between them, distancing them further.

He hates it.

Putting his headset back on, he unpauses his game, and immerses himself back in Team Fortress 2, though he’s unable to find himself able to be as excited about it as before, and it shows in his kill score and with the way that the blue team slowly begins dominating, much to Karkat’s screeching annoyance.

Kurloz could hear the little scratching of nails on his door as he leaned up against the woodwork. He wanted to open the door and explain, but even he still had difficulty and terms coming to grips with what happened. A little thing like speaking shouldn’t have been such an end to all means, but for him, it somehow just was.

He knew what he had. He knew what he was. The nice term for it was glossophobic. Roughly translated, it equaled to something along the lines of him being a pussy who had lived in silence for so long that he’d become so nonchalant, so accustomed to it that the mere thought, the mere _idea_ of hearing the sound of his own voice made him want to shit himself. It was pathetic.

Smiling mirthfully and shaking his head, Kurloz went into his bathroom and turned on the faucet, cupping his palms and splashing his face with frigid water, little droplets cascading down his chin and throat and pooling in the hollows of his prominent collarbone. A good portion of his chest was inked over with an anatomically correct heart sprouting a demon wing from the left, and a fluffy, feathery angel wing on the right, and he impulsively studied his tattoo to see if it might be in need of a touch-up anytime soon.

He did the same for all the others--the right rib piece of a gnarled up, withered husk of an oak tree with the roots tangled and embedded in a corpse with the little shriveled heart hanging from a branch, the three large bleeding roses on his right forearm with little curling black accents, his half-sleeve on his upper-left bicep of a skull adorned in reaper robes with a skeletal hand holding a large scythe, and the multitude of little lines of tattooed stitches he had on various places on his person--around the right wrist, some cascading up his right bicep, his right shoulder and around his throat, and down his left forearm, only to end around the left wrist, the threads loosely coming undone and a needle tattooed to look like it was poking out of his flesh.

Turning around and twisting his head, he glanced at his full back piece of a tribal skeletal spinal column, lip curling up when he noted the shading could use a little tweaking. Everything on his person except for the roses and his chest piece was done in black and white--they were the only two pieces that featured red, and even they were in sparse amounts. He’d get Porrim to touch up his tattoos on a day that business was slow.

Looking down, Kurloz watched the water swirl down the drain for a few moments, before sighing and turning it off. Porrim would tell him to find his balls and go out there and stop hiding from Gamzee if she were here. Always the voice of reason. She was like a perpetual little guardian angel--even when she wasn’t near him, he could always clearly envision what she would do if she were put in a situation such as this.

He was going to find his balls. He was going to find them, put them back in his sleep pants where they fucking belonged, and apologize to Gamzee for just storming out on him like that and no doubt leaving him with a big giant quizzical ‘what the fuck’ hanging over his head like a storm cloud.

Leaving his room, he raps his knuckles on Gamzee’s door and pokes his head in.

_“I JUST FUCKING SPOKE TO MY DAD ABOUT COMING TO SEE YOU. YOU WILL NOT BELIEVE THIS SHIT GAMZEE, I AM SO FUCKING PISSED. I HAVE TO BRING MY BROTHER IF I WANT TO SEE YOU! MY BROTHER!!”_

Karkat’s voice breaks as he screams, his last word coming out rasping and hoarse as he goes into a coughing fit. Even Kurloz winces at how painful they sound--deep and jarring, like they’re emerging from the pit of his chest and wracking his body with every resurgence.

_“Come on KK, chill bro...”_

_“DID YOU JUST CALL ME KK!? OH I WILL FUCK YOU UP--!”_

Gamzee mutes the television and looks at Kurloz, taking off his headset and pausing his game. “...Are you okay?”

Kurloz sits down next to him and folds his legs Indian-style. _‘I’m fine. I just haven’t heard the sound of my own voice for about... three years now? And I guess it just really freaked me out...’_ he mouths, feeling guilt consume him when his baby brother’s face falls when his lips utter nary a sound.

“Can I tell you something?”

Nodding, Kurloz brushes some of his thick, tangled hair out of his face.

“...I don’t motherfuckin’ get you. And I probably never will, bro. I just don’t understand why you won’t talk. But... regardless, now that I’ve heard you say somethin’, even if it was just bein’ that one little word like it all was... I’m gonna wanna hear it again, because I’m selfish.”

Kurloz opens his mouth, but he’s stopped by Gamzee.

“I ain’t done yet, bro. You could just make this easy on yourself and try. Try really fuckin’ hard. Just talk. For me. That’s what I want for my birthday and for Christmas. For you to just stop with the bullshit and be real with me. No more of this signing and mouthing what you wanna say. You have a real conversation with me like the polite motherfucker Dad raised you to be, or not at all.”

The elder Makara was never good with ultimatums--he hates being issued them, and he especially hates having them forced upon him by someone five years his junior. He bites down on his heavily-pierced lip to prevent it from going into an outright scowl, and he breathes in heavily through his nose. Leaning in until their noses are almost touching, he again mouths what he has to say, outright purposely mocking his younger sibling.

_‘I’m just gonna have to motherfucking disappoint you then, baby brother.’_

Moving his brows up once, he gets to his feet and leaves Gamzee’s room, shutting the door behind himself and going straight into his. He doesn’t flinch when he hears the loud scream of frustration savage the halls of the apartment. Rather, he goes over to his nightstand, takes out his lighter and cigarettes, and plucks one from the pack, igniting it and getting into bed.

He doesn’t sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! :o)


End file.
